Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. VI-VII. Letters
Charles Lamb to Thomas Allsop, [September 1823]
DEAR A.—Your
Cheese is the best I ever tasted; Mary
will tell you so hereafter. She is at home, but has disappointed me. She has
gone back rather than improved. However, she has sense enough to value the
present, for she is greatly fond of Stilton. Yours is the delicatest
rain-bow-hued melting piece I ever flavoured. Believe me. I took it the more
kindly, following so great a kindness.
Depend upon’t, yours shall be one of the first houses
we shall present ourselves at, when we have got our Bill of Health.
Being both yours and Mrs.
Allsop’s truly.
Ann Allsop [née Dean] (d. 1877 c.)
The wife of Thomas Allsop, biographer of Coleridge, whom she married in 1824; she was a
society hostess, not the actress Fanny Alsop, daughter of Dorothy Jordan.
Thomas Allsop (1795-1880)
English silk merchant and stockbroker who was the friend and biographer of Coleridge
(1836) and a member of Charles Lamb's circle.
Mary Anne Lamb (1764-1847)
Sister of Charles Lamb with whom she wrote Tales from Shakespeare (1807). She lived with
her brother, having killed their mother in a temporary fit of insanity.
