Disraeli entered the world of politics with his election to parliament in 1837 and in 1841. “For long his dream had been to acquire a great house in that county of Bucks to which he had attached himself,” and in 1848 Disraeli borrowed money to purchase the Manor of Hughenden (Disraeli, Maurois). Since his youth, Disraeli had been familiar with the place and thought it appropriate for his station. “To be the acknowledged chief of a great party in the House of Commons – here certainly was one step forward on the road to power… A landed proprietor, walking his estates and talking with his farmers, learns the real state of feelings and needs, hears the complaint of the agriculturalist, can reckon for himself the effects of the laws on which he has voted,” and it is to the library in this house that our letter refers (ibid.). The highly spiritual and talented English poet, mystic, painter, and engraver William Blake (1757-1827) published and engraved his own books, and though never experiencing financial success in his own lifetime, found posthumous immortality as one of the great artistic geniuses of the Romantic Movement. Born nine months to the day after Blake’s death, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), a poet, painter and originator of the pre-Raphaelite movement was fascinated with Blake. Feeling an overwhelming spiritual connection to his artistic predecessor, Rossetti assiduously amassed Blake’s unpublished manuscripts and it was because of his collection that Alexander Gilchrist, who was writing a life of Blake, contacted Rossetti in 1860. “Members of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood were excited by the prospect of the forthcoming book, and Dante Gabriel’s brother, the art critic William Michael Rossetti, encouraged Gilchrist to think in terms of an even more ambitious project… spurred on by these late supporters, Gilchrist promised to deliver the completed biography by spring 1862,” (“Saving Blake” The Guardian, Holmes). However, his promise was broken by his death in November 1861 at the age of 33. Gilchrist’s widow, long his research assistant and amanuensis, wrote his publisher a month later stating her intention to finish the book which she did with the Rossetti brothers’ help in 1863. Anne Gilchrist is also remembered in the literary world for having fallen in love with Walt Whitman after William Rossetti gave her a copy of Leaves of Grass in 1869. At the encouragement of Rossetti who sought to boost Whitman’s career, Gilchrist published A Woman’s Estimate of Walt Whitman anonymously in 1870. She also wrote passionate letters directly to the poet and the two maintained a correspondence for six years before Gilchrist moved to Philadelphia to be near him. Their eventual meeting ended her hopes for a romantic liaison but the friendship between the two literary figures endured. Our letter, obviously written during Anne Gilchrist’s research on Blake, is darkly written and in very good condition.

Item #14304