LITERARY FUND SUBSCRIPTION / DONATION FORM.
London: (n. d.). 1st printing (presumed), ca late 1790s / early 1800s. Single sheet, copperplate printed recto only, plate impression at edges. 7 lines of text. 2 blanks: date & name of donor/amount of donation: Literary Fund / For Relief of Authors in Distress, their Widows & Children. / London, _____ / Received of _____ / Guinea, being Year's Subscription to the / purposes of that Institution. / Treasurer" Image at top, designed by C. Smith; engraved by J. Caldwall. Banner across image top states, "Genius in Distress Relieved by Liberality". 11-1/2" x 8-1/2". Now housed in a clear archival mylar sleeve. Age-toning & soiling. A VG survivor. Item #52184
The Literary Fund was instituted 1790, by the untiring exertions of Daivd Williams, Esq., and incorporated 1818. The object of this fund was to administer assistance to authors of merit and good character who may be reduced to distress by unavoidable calamities, or deprived by enfeebled faculties or declining life of the power of literary exertion. The relief was distributed by the committee, and was done without divulging names.
Charlotte Lenox, author of The Female Quixote, derived her chief support in her old age from this fund; and at the dinner of 1822, when Chateaubriand's health was proposed by the Duke of York, as the ambassador of France, he mentioned in his acknowledgement of the toast, that he was himself aware of the benevolent character of the fund for, during the period of the French Revolution, a French literary gentleman was in difficulties, and those difficulties having been represented to the Committee by one of his friends, a sum was voted sufficient to relieve him from all anxiety, and that at a time when the Institution was itself struggling into notice. This gentleman, Chateaubriand continued, was thus enabled to maintain his ground. At the Restoration he returned to France to acquire fresh honours as a literary man, and to rise in the favour of his sovereign. He had now returned to England, but in a different capacity - as the ambassador of his sovereign - and He was that man.
Applicants for relief will obtain information as to the modes of proceeding, by addressing the secretary, who will furnish printed forms to be filled up." [Peter Cunningham, Hand-Book of London, 1850, as found quoted on-line by The Dictionary of Victorian London].
Here offered a blank form for fund subscribers.
Price: $245.00