Autograph Letter Signed from the English poet Eliza Cook, sending what she describes as a 'specimen' of her 'pothooks' and hangers': a holograph poem titled 'Impromptu on being told the death of my Mother would leave a scar on my heart'.

Author: 
Eliza Cook (1818-1889), English poet and Chartist, close friend of the American actress Charlotte Cushman
Publication details: 
9 Gloucester Buildings, Old Kent Road [London]. 11 December 1845.
£100.00
SKU: 13616

2pp., 4to. Bifolium. In very good condition, on lightly-aged paper, with minor evidence of previous mounting. Apparently addressing an autograph hunter, she writes: 'I beg to forward you a specimen of my "pothooks and hangers" trusting you will "admire" if you honestly can. Believe I have pleasure in gratifying your request and am with truth my dear | Ever yours faithfully | Eliza Cook'. The poem, also signed 'Eliza Cook', is four lines long, beginning 'That stroke indeed would deeply gash'. There is no indication that the poem was published. In her biography of Cushman ('When Romeo Was A Woman', 2000) Lisa Merrill claims that the two women were lovers.