?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 700 - $ 1,000
"RACHEL [FÉLIX] . . . THE GREATEST TRAGIC ACTRESS THAT EVER LIVED" JAMES, HENRY. Autograph Letter Signed, to the sister of author and activist Emma Lazarus, Josephine ("Dear Miss Lazarus"), defending his quotation of a letter concerning the actress Rachel Félix. 2 pages, 4to, written on the recto and verso of a single sheet, personal stationery; complete separations at folds inexpertly repaired on second page with cello tape, few small holes with minor loss to text. With the original envelope, addressed in holograph and with three cancelled postage stamps featuring the profile of King Edward VII, two one penny and a half penny. Rye, 11 December 1903
". . . I much regret that you should have received pain from the passage you incriminate in Story's letter, &, frankly, let me say, I think you attach too much importance to it. It is not a responsible or pondered utterance, but a scrap of a familiar letter . . . , which I reproduced exactly for the tone of the hour & the occasion. These are the very things that make letters valuable . . . . That such & such is the way people were talking at a given moment in a given place. That is the way they were talking (some of them, & stupidly enough, no doubt) about Rachel in Boston, when Story wrote. It was an echo, it seemed to me, . . . & I never dreamed of its wounding any sensibility. I don't think it can have wounded any others, dear Miss Lazarus, at all accustomed to tread these highways or the byways of literature. These are flea bites which, in one way or another, we all as members of any race, guild or faith, sooner or later come in for. I fully believe Rachel to have been the greatest tragic actress that ever lived. . . ."
