WCP3613

[1]

Broadstone, Wimbourne

May 18th. 1907

F. C. Owlett¹ Esq.

Dear Sir

Thanks for your information about Borrow’s² “Ghost Story.”³ I think however some of your facts are not correct. I read Knapp’s Life of Borrow⁴ 6 or 7 years ago, and I feel sure that there was, in it, no copy of the “Ghost story” which I should at once have been interested ^in, as I was when I read “Wild Wales” 2..3 years ago.

If Borrow’s papers &c, have been sold it must have been quite [2] recently, as Mr. Knapp had the use of them all from his widow & step-daughter and I have not heard of their deaths yet, and ^as they were comfortably off I do not think they would have sold them.

I was much interested in the “Life”, as it shows that Borrow kept very full “Journals” & that all the stories & statements in his various books are facts – very little embellished. You would be much interested [3] in reading it. I read it in 2 vols. from the London Library, but I see in the Biog. Dictionary it is said to be in 3 vols., so perhaps there was another vol. published later & the “Ghost Story” may be in that.

What I consider the best and most remarkable G. Story, is a quite modern one, and I believe a strictly true one. It appeared twice in “All the Year Round” – & was afterward printed by the writer’s widow with Letters from Dickens about it – (very curious) – called – “A Wonderful Ghost Story”⁵ – by Thomas Heaphy. (Griffith & Farran – 1882) in a a [sic] little booklet at I think 2/- or 2/6. [4] It is in “All the year Round”, for 1861. I know a friend of Mr. Heaphy’s (who was a portrait painter) & he assured me the events certainly happened to him, as he was a thoroughly trustworthy man.

Yours very truly | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

note.⁶

The Dr, of course was wrong in his Borrow facts!

Mrs Borrow died in 1869. B’s stepdaughter died in Dec. 1903. She sold nearly all B’s papers at the time of his death. If you wished, I would annotate this letter. F.C