Between the Covers

Unbound. An autograph letter from Mary J. Haines to Bert Adams dated November 16th 1883. One leaf folded to make four pages, three of which have been used. Age-toning with faint spotting else near fine. A letter written by Mary Haines to Bert Adams expressing her anger at him for a reported libelous story spread by Adams about Haines. She begins, "I think you are one of the meanest contemptible wretches that ever was, to tell such a lie about me when you know very well not a word of it is not so." The letter continues, "I heard last night that you said I was a bad girl and all you come here for you could get all you wanted, you know very well you can't." She points out that he is less than a dog and she would be happy if she never spoke to him again. "If you did say it I'll take care you will wish you had never said it, I shall tell every girl I see what you said, and if you will lie about one girl you will another so look out I mean what I say." Towards the end of the letter she writes, "O why did you say so I never did anything nor said nothing about you I did not think any body could be so mean and you told a nigger the idea I did not think you was so little as that, I thought more of you than that." She does change her tone after that to let him know that if by chance he didn't say it that she would accept his explanation but quickly returns to her enraged tone and ends the note with "I hait [sic] you."

A fascinating letter from a woman standing up for herself against a man who was shaming her. We could not definitively identify the correspondence except to imply from provenance that they were likely from New Jersey or from the Philadelphia area.

Item #410445