DESPERATE AUTOGRAPH SEEKER
Autograph letter signed ("Geo. M. Towle") to Hon. Littleton W. Tazewell ("Dear Sir").
August 30th, 1858.
Price: $75.00
About the item
4to. DESPERATE AUTOGRAPH SEEKER. Fine.
Item #249228
A desperate entreaty to the retired congressman, senator, and 26th Governor of Virginia from an autograph seeker best known for his translations of Jules Verne’s works. Reading in part: "I have taken the liberty, Sir of addressing you this note, for the purpose of making a slight request of you, which I hope sincerely you may find it convenient & agreeable to grant. I desire, Sir, to obtain your autograph-Having a large and valuable collection, & having in vain tried to obtain yours, I resort with much hesitation to this mode … I have the autographs of all your illustrious contempories … with the single exception of your own…"
Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, George Makepeace Towles (1841-1893) was a lawyer, US consul, and author, whose prominent literary friends included Charles Dickens, who published several of Towle’s articles in his periodical, All the Year Round. Towles began translating the works of Jules Verne for American publisher, James R. Osgood, in 1873, and has been praised for the quality of his work, particularly his translation of Around the World in Eighty Days.
