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HOWELLS, WILLIAM DEAN. Two autograph letters signed ("W.D. Howells") to Dr. Albert Leffingwell of The Sanatorium, Dansville, N.Y. (the first letter addressed to "Gentlemen"); Lake George, N.Y., and Washington, D.C., 6 September 1887 and 17 March 1888. Together 4 pages, 8vo & 4to, the first letter nearly separated at central vertical fold and with remnants of mounting paper to larger sheet obscuring a few letters. With: (1) Printed "Calendar for March-April, 1888. The Sanatorium, Dansville, New York," broadside, 8vo, tipped to larger sheet with the above second letter; (2) Engraved announcement by the Howells of "the death of their daughter Winifred...near Philadelphia, March 2nd, 1889," broadside, small 8vo, black-bordered, remnant of mounting on verso.
6 September 1887: "My wife has already written you of our wish to come to the Sanatorium with our invalid daughter...I should like to engage for her a warm, sunny room. I suppose you receive, temporarily at least, the friends of invalids, and for the rest of my family, I should need two more rooms...they need not adjoin my daughter's, but I suppose should be near. Please let them be pleasant rooms, warm and sunny also..." 17 March 1888: "...I have been afraid, all along, that Winny was escaping from the regimen planned for her...Cannot you make your will reach her through Miss Vogel and the others? They ought implicitly to obey you, and report any information...I throw out this very question in the distraction which your letter has left me to; you will know what weight to give it; only, if you can, I hope you'll try it..." Poignantly, there is a note by Dr. Leffingwell in red ink at the end of this letter: "Alas! She was too much 'humored,' and died in March 1889 a year later." (4)
6 September 1887: "My wife has already written you of our wish to come to the Sanatorium with our invalid daughter...I should like to engage for her a warm, sunny room. I suppose you receive, temporarily at least, the friends of invalids, and for the rest of my family, I should need two more rooms...they need not adjoin my daughter's, but I suppose should be near. Please let them be pleasant rooms, warm and sunny also..." 17 March 1888: "...I have been afraid, all along, that Winny was escaping from the regimen planned for her...Cannot you make your will reach her through Miss Vogel and the others? They ought implicitly to obey you, and report any information...I throw out this very question in the distraction which your letter has left me to; you will know what weight to give it; only, if you can, I hope you'll try it..." Poignantly, there is a note by Dr. Leffingwell in red ink at the end of this letter: "Alas! She was too much 'humored,' and died in March 1889 a year later." (4)