Spirits refuse to make a table float
Goring, Augusta [1807 -1875, friend of Mary Shelley]
Autograph letter signed as Trelawney, to an unamed Baron requesting his company at a seance.
Casa Guidi, Italy, Sunday 17th, 2 o’cl, 1870s, als, 4pp, inviting the Baron to a seance with Bibi and Olympia, complaining of capricious spirits who would not lift a table and requesting him to ask ‘Regina’ “if either of us is a Medium”, 155 by 100mm (6 by 4 inches).
Augusta was the daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel John Harvey (1775-1842) and Frances Kerrison (1765-1809). She was pretty, cultivated and modern thinking. Little is known about her youth, but a miniature painted by John Linnell in 1827 survives. In that year she married Sir Harry Dent Goring from Highden, Sussex but she was treated badly and after she met E.J. Trelawny in 1838, she eloped with him. She pretended to be a Mrs. Ann Granby and gave birth to a son, Edgar, on 5 Aug 1839. Augusta and Trelawny married and lived in Wales and had two more children (Frank and Laetitia). Augusta was a close friend of Mary Shelley, but in 1838 Trelawny had broken off relations with Mary after she refused his proposal for marriage. It was not until 1848 that Augusta and Mary met again (a correspondence followed). Around 1858 Trelawny installed a young mistress in their house at Usk and Augusta left him and moved to Italy.
£50
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