MA 2011.22 -- "Why Nurses think the air of Kensington Gardens so wholesome" by William Makepeace Thackeray
Imagine having a father who was friends with Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and other famous authors of the 19th century. Henry Bradbury, the son of William Bradbury (of the Victorian publisher Bradbury and Evans), used his father's connections to compile a scrapbook of letters, sketches, drawings, prints, photographs, and printed ephemera. Much of the material is related to Punch, the Victorian periodical printed and later purchased by Bradbury and Evans.
Shown here is a drawing by Thackeray from Henry Bradbury's album. Thackeray has titled it "Why Nurses think the air of Kensington Gardens so wholesome," and it is signed with his signature eyeglasses in the lower left corner.
For more information about this drawing, click here. For more information about Henry Bradbury's scrapbook, click here.
The Leon Levy Foundation is generously underwriting a major project to upgrade catalog records for the Morgan's collection of literary and historical manuscripts. The project is the most substantive effort to date to improve primary research information on a portion of this large and highly important collection.