Autograph letter signed by illustrator Richard Doyle private theatre

DOYLE, Richard (1824-1883). Autograph letter signed concerning the organisation of private theatricals and recommending the playwright Tom Taylor. 7 Cambridge Terrace, Hyde Park, Sunday, ND.
 
Single sheet, written on the first side only, 180 x 115 mm. Old folds and some toning, with a paper panel affixed across the lower portion of the reverse; about very good.
 
Writing to Mr Senior, Doyle responds to a request for assistance with the organisation of private theatricals. He confesses that only once in his life has he taken any part in “the getting up of private theatricals” and therefore doubts that he can “throw much light on the subject.” To be genuinely useful, he explains, one would require “some slight knowledge of private theatricals — to be up to all the dodges of stage effects, costumes, lighting &c.” He concludes with the firm recommendation: “Tom Taylor is the man to consult.” 
 
Tom Taylor was one of the leading dramatists and theatrical critics of the period, as well as a fellow contributor to Punch and later its editor. Richard Doyle was a leading Victorian illustrator and caricaturist. He joined Punch in 1843 and designed the magazine’s celebrated crowded cover, while his later work became particularly associated with fairies, elves and the supernatural. His best-known illustrated book was In Fairyland, published in 1870. He was also the uncle of Arthur Conan Doyle.