Love Letters of Famous Men and Women of the Past and Present Century (Volume 1) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1888. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... LAURENCE STERNE 1768 Laurence Sterne is distinguished by three principal amours, in which he wrote love letters to the objects of his regard. The first of these was Elizabeth Luniley, of Staffordshire, who afterwards became his wife; the second, Catherine Formantel, or Fourmantel, or De Fourniantel; the third, Eliza or Elizabeth Draper. The last of these has been called his grande passion, apparently without due and sufficient reason, for all Sterne's passions were grand. The first series of correspondence the public owes to the tender care of his pious daughter, one Lydia Sterne de Medalle, who states in the preface to ' The Letters of the late Laurence Sterne to his most intimate Friends, ' published by A. Millar, W. Law, and R. Carter, in 1794, that in giving to the world these letters of a 'privacy the most sacred' she does but comply with her mother's request, which was that if any letters were published under Mr Sterne's name, those she had in her possession, as well as those that her father's friends would be kind enough to send her, should be likewise published, adding that she depends on the 'candour of the public' for their favourable reception. Mrs Sterne is commonly addressed before her marriage as 'My L.' Sterne calls her his 'contemplative girl, ' and speaks of the happy modification of matter by which every brick and window-pane of her lodging can remain insensible to her loss when she leaves it. 'Among the MSS. collected by my father, ' writes Mr John Murray in an appendix to an edition of the Works of Sterne, * in four vols., by James P. Brown, M.D., ' was a series of thirteen letters which appear to have been obtained by him from a lady named Weston. The letters introduce us to a character apparently unknown to all Sterne's biographers, bu...