ALS, one page, 5 x 8, black-bordered mourning stationery, no date but circa 1887. Handwritten letter to Edwin W. Carr, in full: "It is annoying to me that I should have left your really moving letter so long unanswered. Late as it is, let me thank you for it heartily; such communications give courage and refresh that sense of the thing being worth doing that so easily faints." In fine condition, with a complete separation to the central horizontal fold repaired with archival tape on the reverse. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope addressed in Stevenson's hand, affixed to the front pastedown of an 1887 hardcover second edition of Stevenson's Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers. Stevenson's father passed away on May 8, 1887, thus the black-bordered letter, and he himself was battling tuberculosis he had suffered from since childhood—an affliction he often referred to as the 'wolverine on my shoulders.' Carr collected books and was fighting against the same disease in the dry air of Montana and passed away in 1893, a year before Stevenson's death.
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