Diplomatic Text
Mrs. A M Clarke[1]
Post Office Canterbury
- Kent Feby 9th
1815
My dearest Friend
Having been favourd two days - since
by a kind letter from dear Lady Anson informing me
of the happy Event of her marriage I will not delay
to offer to her dear Parents my warm congratulations
& expreʃs my wishes for the permanent happineʃs
of our very dear & amiable Louisa -- be aʃsured I
feelingly participate in the satisfaction you must
be so sensible of on this Occasion -- it is an Union
which appears to anticipate all you can desire
I wish I could see you that I might enjoyexperience
one of the greatest pleasures I could enjoy that
of being a witneʃs of the happineʃs of a friend
inestimably dear
I hear you are remarkably well
part of which I consider as the result of
a mind at ease I will not now call upon
you for a Letter knowing how inceʃsantly you
are engaged & that you quarrel with your old
best & dearest friends Pen & Ink perhaps
when you must neceʃsarily be absent from
dear Louisa -- you may insensibly be drawn
malgré vous into a close correspondence --
this reminds me of two Sisters who wrote
every other day to each other & a Mother &
Daughter who wrote every day Mrs. Saunders
& Mrs. Roycroft Roycroft & Mrs. Aufreere
& her Daughter do you ever see or hear
of them? I should like to hear of Lord
Napier & Mrs. Garrick whom I shall ever
remember with pleasure the latter with
lively - gratitude should occasion offer
aʃsure her of it I am sorry she is so far
advanced in years[2]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. Clarke's use of Mrs. rather than Miss would be explained by this OED definition: ‘A title prefixed to the name of an unmarried lady or girl [...]. Now rare except as a title of courtesy applied, with or without inclusion of the first name, to elderly unmarried ladies (this use seems to have arisen in the late 18th cent.)’ (OED s.v. Mrs. n. 1, 1b).
2. The rest of the letter has been lost.
Normalised Text
Mrs. Anna Maria Clarke
Post Office Canterbury
Kent February 9th
1815
My dearest Friend
Having been favoured two days since
by a kind letter from dear Lady Anson informing me
of the happy Event of her marriage I will not delay
to offer to her dear Parents my warm congratulations
& express my wishes for the permanent happiness
of our very dear & amiable Louisa -- be assured I
feelingly participate in the satisfaction you must
be so sensible of on this Occasion -- it is an Union
which appears to anticipate all you can desire
I wish I could see you that I might experience
one of the greatest pleasures I could enjoy that
of being a witness of the happiness of a friend
inestimably dear
I hear you are remarkably well
part of which I consider as the result of
a mind at ease I will not now call upon
you for a Letter knowing how incessantly you
are engaged & that you quarrel with your old
best & dearest friends Pen & Ink perhaps
when you must necessarily be absent from
dear Louisa -- you may insensibly be drawn
malgré vous into a close correspondence --
this reminds me of two Sisters who wrote
every other day to each other & a Mother &
Daughter who wrote every day Mrs. Saunders
& Mrs. Roycroft & Mrs. Aufreere
& her Daughter do you ever see or hear
of them? I should like to hear of Lord
Napier & Mrs. Garrick whom I shall ever
remember with pleasure the latter with
lively - gratitude should occasion offer
assure her of it I am sorry she is so far
advanced in years
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Notes
Metadata
Library References
Repository: John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester
Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers
Item title: Incomplete letter from Anna Maria Clarke to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/10/1/23
Correspondence Details
Sender: Anna Maria Clarke
Place sent: Canterbury
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: London (certainty: low)
Date sent: 9 February 1815
Letter Description
Summary: Incomplete letter from Anna Maria Clarke to Mary Hamilton. She sends her congratulations on the marriage of Hamilton's daughter Louisa. She also writes of old friends, Lord Napier (HAM/1/20) and Mrs Garrick (HAM/1/6/6), whom she remembers with pleasure.
Length: 2 sheets, 277 words
Transliteration Information
Editorial declaration: First edited in the project 'Image to Text' (David Denison & Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, 2013-2019), now incorporated in the project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers' (Hannah Barker, Sophie Coulombeau, David Denison, Tino Oudesluijs, Cassandra Ulph, Christine Wallis & Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, 2019-2023).
All quotation marks are retained in the text and are represented by appropriate Unicode characters. Words split across two lines may have a hyphen on the first, the second or both fragments (reco-|ver, imperfect|-ly, satisfacti-|-on); or a double hyphen (pur=|port, dan|=ger, qua=|=litys); or none (respect|ing). Any point in abbreviations with superscripted letter(s) is placed last, regardless of relative left-right orientation in the original. Thus, Mrs. or Mrs may occur, but M.rs or Mr.s do not.
Acknowledgements: XML version: Research Assistant funding in 2016/17 provided by The John Rylands Research Institute.
Research assistant: Sarah Connor, undergraduate student, University of Manchester
Transliterator: Thomas Mills, undergraduate student, University of Manchester (submitted May 2017)
Cataloguer: Lisa Crawley, Archivist, The John Rylands Library
Cataloguer: John Hodgson, Head of Special Collections, John Rylands Research Institute and Library
Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors
Revision date: 3 October 2023