[Charles Stuart Calverley, poet, classical scholar and wit.] Autograph Letter Signed ('C S. Calverley') to Charles R. Steggatt, declining to order cigars with the comment: 'I never by any chance smoke a cigar.'

Author: 
Charles Stuart Calverley [born Charles Stuart Blayds] (1831-1884), poet, classical scholar and wit
Publication details: 
18 December 1880. 12 Mostyn Terrace, Grand Parade, Eastbourne.
£45.00
SKU: 22340

1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. In envelope with penny red stamp and postmark, addressed to Steggatt at 53 Norwich Street, Cambridge. The letter reads: 'Dear Sir | I regret that I cannot give you an order. I have no doubt of the excellence of the cigars, but I never by any chance smoke a cigar. | Believe me | Yours truly | C S. Calverley'. A nice Cambridge association, given that Calverley's most famous poem is 'Ode to Tobacco', and that it features in Cambridge on a brass plaque on the wall of the former Bacon's tobacconists. Calverley may have been responding to a leg-pull: at the time of writing the address of the recipient was the site of the Eclipse pub, landlord Thomas Adkins, and Charles H. [sic] Steggatt was the name of a celebrated Cambridge (Trinity College) organist and hymnodist (1826-1905).