AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED (ALS)

Quincy [MA], 1 October 1874. Letter. Near Fine. Three-page letter on both sides of a 10" x 8" sheet to author and editor George W. Curtis responding about a series of lectures being organized by a man named Carpenter. Adams says he has an aversion "to all the system of lecturing which had been carried on so systematically of later years.... It would be a great inconvenience to me to break off from the prosecution of my present undertaking, which will be likely to absorb all my remaining days of usefulness.... He mentioned your name, that of Dr. Woolsey and Mr. Schurz as within the perview of the plan. What could I say but that if gentlemen of that mark were ready to advance, I could not fall back?" Curtis, editor of HARPER'S WEEKLY during the Civil War years and one of the most influential American journalists of any day, also was known for his speeches, one of which was a tribute to Charles Sumner. Curtis also had the honor of helping Thoreau build his cabin on Walden Pond. Fine letter from one important American figure to another.

Charles Francis Adams Sr. (August 18, 1807 - November 21, 1886) was an editor, writer, politician, and diplomat. He was a son of John Quincy Adams and grandson of John Adams, about whom he wrote a major biography. Adams served two terms in the Massachusetts State Senate before running unsuccessfully as vice-presidential candidate for the Free Soil Party in the election of 1848 on a ticket with former president Martin Van Buren. During the Civil War, Adams served as the United States Minister to the United Kingdom under Abraham Lincoln, where he played a key role in keeping the British government neutral and not diplomatically recognizing the Confederacy.