Item 9 - Letter from Rev. Martin Sherlock

4 pp; manuscript

A letter from Rev. Martin Sherlock to J[ohn] Nichols, printer, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street, London. The letter mentions money issues and references his literary talents. Sherlock writes ‘I could write very successful books; and what very few men can do (what no man ever has done, except myself), I could write books in French that would succeed in France; and books in English that would succeed in England’. He also affirms that he has ‘the greatest wish and desire to write, but my fortune will not let me’. A faded pencil annotation on the first page reads ‘Martin Sherlock … author of the ‘Letters of an English Traveller’ (‘Lettres d’un Voyageur Anglois’, published in 1779).

For a brief biographical statement on Martin Sherlock see http://www.ricorso.net/rx/az-data/authors/s/Sherlock_M/life.htm

See also the Dictionary of National Biography entry see https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_1885-1900/Sherlock,_Martin

For information on John Nichols printing office see https://londonstreetviews.wordpress.com/2018/09/26/nichols-son-printers/