Letter from Clarkson Stanfield to "My dear Searle", Thursday, April 13 [1826?]
DepositedAn autograph letter signed by Clarkson Stanfield to "My dear Searle", sending him 'The Tragedy' for an opinion of its merits. The context suggests it was a matter they had already discussed and the script likely to be one on which Stanfield had been asked by a third party to seek a view. The letter is dated Thursday, April 13th without a year: it is probably 1826, during Stanfield's period as leading scene-painter at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (1823-35), but with likely secondary alternatives being 1837 or 1843. The addressee, despite the apparent spelling error, is almost certainly Thomas James Serle (1798-1889), actor, dramatist, supporter (as was Stanfield) of the great tragedian William Charles Macready, and from 1837 his acting manager at Covent Garden and later his agent. If 'The Tragedy' was specifically sent to Stanfield as a route to Macready, one of the later dates (1837 or 1843) is more likely. "Clarkson Stanfield (1793-1867), marine and landscape painter. As a boy, he made several voyages in the merchant service, and was pressed into the Navy in 1812. He retired from the sea after an accident, became a scene painter at a sailors' theatre in east London, and progressed to be a member of the Hampstead Sketching Society and a friend of Charles Dickens, Thackeray, Macready, Sir Edwin Landseer, David Roberts, Samuel Lover, and C.R. Leslie. He was called Clarkson after the anti-slavery agitator. He illustrated Heath's Picturesque Annuals for the years 1832-34, and in 1838 published a collection of lithographic views on the Rhine, Moselle, and Meuse; forty subjects from both sides of the English Channel were also steel-engraved under the title of Stanfield's Coast Scenery (1836). Among literary works for which he provided illustrations were Captain Marryat's 'The Pirate and the Three Cutters' (1836), Poor Jack (1840) and the lives and works of Lord Byron, George Crabbe, and Samuel Johnson, mainly in editions by John Murray."-- Dealer's description
- In Collection:
- 1 page
- Autograph Letter by Clarkson Stanfield
- 51.5128736, -0.12045733
- Handwritten in black ink.
- 19th Century Manuscripts Collection
- Gift of Peter Lowens, April 2024.
- Accession Number: 2024-026
- Special Collections Finding Aid: https://search.archives.uvic.ca/peter-lowens-collection
- April 17, 2024
- Metadata by KD. Additional metadata by Dr. Pieter van der Merwe
- Rights
- Contact Special Collections and University Archives for access to the original. This material is made available on this site for research and private study only.
- DOI