A long birthday letter (130 inches !), March 1857.
A long birthday letter (130 inches !), 20 March 1857.
Jonathan BAGSTER (1813-1872) A long letter to Ada Eunice Bagster, “Dearest Ada” from her “affectionate Uncle J Bagster”: “How can a short letter be a long one? Here is a letter which contains only a few lines and yet is not a short letter. Next I must tell you I love you very much. A letter is not worth much if has not a slice of love in it … ” on eight joined sheets of paper, backed onto gauze, overall: 2 ¾ x 130 inches; 70 x 3320 mm., with a spindle at one end and a red ribbon at the other, rolled and contained in a stitched oil-cloth cylinder.
Provenance: Ada Eunice Crawshaw (inscription to inside of sewn oil-cloth cylinder ‘AE Bagster Mar.[ch] 1 / [18] 65’, by descent); Bagster family (purchased at auction).
A pre-Lewis Carroll whimsy that has much of the same sense of fun as the Rev. Dodgson’s letters to his young correspondents: dated two days before Ada’s eighth birthday it looks to have been intended as a treat to be opened and read on the day?
Ada Eunice CRAWSHAW (nee Bagster, b.22 March 1849-1941) was a member of the large and expanding Bagster family – best known now as the publishers of a polyglot version of the Holy Bible with extensive commentary. Ada was the daughter of Cornelius Birch Bagster and Susanne Maria Bagster (nee Aitken). She appears to have been named after her paternal grandmother, Eunice Bagster whp died just short of her 100th birthday.
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A long birthday letter (130 inches !), 20 March 1857.
Jonathan BAGSTER (1813-1872) A long letter to Ada Eunice Bagster, “Dearest Ada” from her “affectionate Uncle J Bagster”: “How can a short letter be a long one? Here is a letter which contains only a few lines and yet is not a short letter. Next I must tell you I love you very much. A letter is not worth much if has not a slice of love in it … ” on eight joined sheets of paper, backed onto gauze, overall: 2 ¾ x 130 inches; 70 x 3320 mm., with a spindle at one end and a red ribbon at the other, rolled and contained in a stitched oil-cloth cylinder.
Provenance: Ada Eunice Crawshaw (inscription to inside of sewn oil-cloth cylinder ‘AE Bagster Mar.[ch] 1 / [18] 65’, by descent); Bagster family (purchased at auction).
A pre-Lewis Carroll whimsy that has much of the same sense of fun as the Rev. Dodgson’s letters to his young correspondents: dated two days before Ada’s eighth birthday it looks to have been intended as a treat to be opened and read on the day?
Ada Eunice CRAWSHAW (nee Bagster, b.22 March 1849-1941) was a member of the large and expanding Bagster family – best known now as the publishers of a polyglot version of the Holy Bible with extensive commentary. Ada was the daughter of Cornelius Birch Bagster and Susanne Maria Bagster (nee Aitken). She appears to have been named after her paternal grandmother, Eunice Bagster whp died just short of her 100th birthday.
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