RALSTON, W.R.S. 17902

£35

Description

Autograph Letter Signed, to Mrs.Arthur Lewis, explaining that he never arrived at “your festal board”, due to his “almost unconquerable shyness”. 4 pp. 7 x 4 inches, fine. With the original franked envelope. 8 Alfred Place, Bedford Square, Xmas night 1879. William Ralston Shedden-Ralston (1828–1889), scholar and translator of Russian. He made two or three journeys to Russia, formed numerous literary acquaintances there, and had a lasting friendship with Turgenev. His shyness “came down upon me when I got into the fog – especially when I saw a carriage drive up to your gates, with a vague gleam of radiant beings within. It seemed to me that I should be de trop, and I fled howling into the misty night.”