Antiques & Vintage Collectibles

In the 1,800-year-old letter, written mainly in Greek, the soldier serving in a Roman legion in Europe tells his family he is desperate to hear from them and that he is going to request leave to make the long journey home to see them.

Professor finds cache of previously unpublished letters by author of Frankenstein, written between 1831 and 1849

...The letters date between 1831, nine years after the death of her poet husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, and 1849, when Mary Shelley was already unwell with the brain tumour that would kill her two years later, and show a woman who was skilled in charming favours from friends, bursting with pride in and concern for her teenage son – and not unconcerned with frivolities. A last-minute ticket to the coronation of William IV in 1831 necessitated a 3am visit from her hairdresser; she attended the event sporting a plumed headdress ("The whole thing was wondrously splendid – Diamonds & cloth of gold grew common to the eye.")

The later letters, written in an increasingly scrawled hand, are short and distracted, full of apologies for her failing memory and powers. To a number of them is still attached a blob of scarlet wax stamped with the author's own seal – one that was not previously known, according to Crook.

[T]he project I am currently working on, identifying and researching the First World War collections that we hold, is the one that has most inspired me and captured my interest. From a collection of poems and illustrations made by soldiers whilst they were being treated in Bradford War Hospital, to official minutes from the meetings of Otley’s Belgian Refugee Committee, to personal letters and diaries giving an insight into what life was like during 1914-1918 both at home and at the front; the collections are vast and draw on personal experiences as well as official documentation issued at the time.