SCRIBE, Augustin-Eugène.
Autograph letter, signed, to an unnamed recipient.
Paris, 21 January, [1840, 1845, or 1851].
8vo bifolium (211 x 135 mm), pp. [1], paper without watermark; sometime folded, some very faint spotting and light soiling.
The dramatist Augustin-Eugène Scribe (1791–1861) thanks the unnamed recipient for his invitation but politely regrets that he is unable to attend. He explains that he had fully intended to come and had already arranged with ‘Monsieur Pichot’ to go together with him. However, Scribe’s wife had reminded him of a prior engagement from which they were unable to release themselves, ‘un diner et une soirée de famille que nous avions pour aujourdhui Mardi’.
‘Monsieur Pichot’ is the Anglophile editor of the Revue britannique Amédée Pichot (1795–1877), translator of Byron, Dickens and Poe, among others.
During the period in which this letter would have been written (i.e. between Scribe’s marriage in 1839 and his death in 1861), Tuesday fell on 21 January in 1840, 1845 and 1851.
