Lot 163: SPAIN, ITALY AND SWITZERLAND. Three long autograph letters by John Hughes, 1817; and other material

Three long autograph letters by John Hughes, to the Society beauty Harriet Thayer, describing the hardships of a typical day's travel in Castile, the dullness of Madrid ("...elbowed on all sides by brawny friars (a very unclean class of companions), bourgeois wrapped in their long cloaks, & each puffing his cigar... Here his Majesty, accompanied by the queen & her sister, & the infant Don Carlos, husband of the latter, and Don Antonio the childish old uncle, rows about close to the shore; all waving their handkerchiefs and enjoying the vivas of the children and the few persons whose mouths are not employed in smoking..."), his journey through La Mancha, and then on to Venice and through the Simplon Pass; the first letter written in what Hughes describes as "a mixture of Spanish, Basque and Catalan" (modern translation supplied); the letters from Italy illustrated with four small sketches, 13 pages, partly cross-written, some worming at the foot with a small loss of text, seal-tears, Barcelona, Rome, Naples, 13 April to 11 October 1817

John Hughes, father of the author of Tom Brown's Schooldays, was author of An Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone (1822), illustrated with his own etchings (for further details, see his entry in the ODNB). Four later letters by him to Harriet Thayer, by now married to Baron Thiébault and living in France, are included in the lot: these are written from London and Berkshire between 1829 and 1833. Also included is a letter by his daughter, the workhouse inspector Jane Elizabeth Senior, announcing his death in 1857.