Autograph letter signed (in full) to "Dear Mrs. Howitt(?)"; Edinburgh, 18 April n.y.
From the Bart Auerbach Collection. 2 pages, 8vo, integral blank leaf. Tiny marginal fold tear, but in fine condition. Item #409343
Crowe responds to a letter giving some basic biographical information and listing "my principal works." She continues: "I am glad you like my ghosts. It is a subject I am very much interested in & I should like some to [see?] your collection. Perhaps you'll accept the copy of 'Aristodemus' [1838, her first published work, a play] I send you–my friends consider it my best production..." (BA) The book that established Crowe as a novelist was 'The Adventures of Susan Hopley' (1841). Her main work of supernatural subjects, 'The Night-side of Nature' (1848) "is said to have influenced the views of Charles Baudelaire. Her own involvement in such matters came to a bizarre culmination in February 1854, when she was discovered naked in Edinburgh one night, convinced that spirits had rendered her invisible. She was treated for mental illness and was said to have recovered" (Wikipedia).
Price: $350.00