A substantial group of four autograph letters signed by Caroline Norton 1860

Caroline Norton on Crystal Palace, Shelley and Scotland

NORTON, Caroline (1808–1877). Four autograph letters signed to Elizabeth “Lily” Motley, including letters from Glastonbury and Eglinton Castle, 1860.

Four autograph letters signed by Caroline Norton to Elizabeth Cabot “Lily” Motley, daughter of the American historian and diplomat John Lothrop Motley, together with an associated envelope. Four letters comprising 14 written pages in total: one dated 8 October from Eglinton Castle, Irvine, five pages; one headed “Glastonbury. Monday", four pages; one undated, three pages; and one undated, two pages, the latter two on black-bordered mourning paper. Several retain embossed stationery marks. With an envelope addressed in Norton’s hand to “Miss Lily Motley”. Old folds, occasional light toning and handling wear; one letter with a split to the center fold; the envelope opened with some loss around the seal, otherwise the letters very good.

A substantial group of published letters from Norton to the eighteen-year-old Lily Motley, written in 1860. The letters range across travel, illness, literature, theatre and Norton’s encounters with the Victorian social world, while repeatedly showing the wit and self-mockery for which her correspondence is notable.

Writing from Glastonbury, Norton begins with a literary joke, imagining Lily “like the lady in Shelley’s Sensitive Plant in her garden”, before explaining that severe neuralgic pain had driven her from London. Her attempt to find country quiet proves disastrous. During the night a howling dog provokes an exasperated traveller; the injured animal then attacks a pig, whose squeals Norton compares to an actor prolonging a death scene, only for an “attentive housemaid” to place a parrot beneath her window at first light, giving her “an opportunity of comparing sounds of discord”. She also records visiting Wells Cathedral, where her grandmother was buried “under a copy of verses; very long & very heavy”, before planning Bournemouth for the sea air.

Another letter gives an account of returning from a concert at the Crystal Palace. Norton describes bribing a railway porter with her customary shilling and making “the most unmatron-like swift race after his meteoric flittings thro’ the crowd” in search of a carriage, eventually arriving home exhausted. She then discusses a proposed visit to her sister Helen, Lady Dufferin, mentioning the actor Alfred Wigan and his wife and a play which Dufferin had written for them. Lady Dufferin was herself a writer and later had her comedy Finesse; or, A Busy Day in Messina produced at the Haymarket with Alfred Wigan among the performers.

The 8 October letter from Eglinton Castle is more reflective. Norton describes spending a “half happy - half aching time” in Scotland, watching a baby and trying not to dwell on “why everything I ever planned melted away like the hill mists in the morning”. She describes Eglinton Castle and the stormy Ayrshire coast, and contrasts its scenery with the “orange & purple evenings” she had enjoyed elsewhere. 

Elizabeth Cabot Motley (1842–1928), known as Lily, was the daughter of the American historian John Lothrop Motley. She later married Sir William Harcourt, the Liberal statesman who became Home Secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the Opposition. The four letters are recorded consecutively in The Selected Letters of Caroline Norton, where they are dated c.28 June 1860, c.August 1860, c.August 1860 and 8 October 1860 respectively.