[Karl Pearson, mathematician, biostatistician and eugenicist.] Autograph Letter Signed ('Karl Pearson.') to 'Dr. Peirce', regarding 'Mrs Baker's death', ancestry and Professor Benjamin Osgood Peirce of Harvard.

3pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. The letter begins with a reference to 'Mrs Baker's death'. Pearson and his wife 'had not realised the gravity of her illness', as they had recently seen her 'so well and fresh in spirit'. He wishes he had been able to accept Peirce's suggestion of 'putting me up for tonight' in order to be 'present tomorrow', but he is 'overdone and had work till 6 o'clock arranged for today, so that to come down by the night train tonight & track back tomorrow night have been more than I could safely attempt'. He would have wished to be present, but thinks his wife 'was right in instructing me not to attempt it'. He begins a long postscript by stating that he would be 'very glad to talk over “ancestry” with you some day'. He has often wondered if Peirce is 'related to the American Peirces – in particular to my old fellow student in Berlin, Benjamin Osgood Peirce [(1854-1914), mathematician], now Professor at Harvard'. Professor Peirce 'comes of North Country Friends, but 20 years ago I was not so interested as now in tracing pedigrees, & did not enquiry [sic] whether it was Yorkshire or Northumberland.' From the distinguished autograph collection of the psychiatrist Richard Alfred Hunter (1923-1981), whose collection of 7000 works relating to psychiatry is now in Cambridge University Library. Hunter and his mother Ida Macalpine had a particular interest in the illness of King George III, and their book 'George III and the Mad Business' (1969) suggested the diagnosis of porphyria popularised by Alan Bennett in his play 'The Madness of George III'.