To Kate Field, 30 July 1877

ALS to Kate Field [Monday] 30 July 1877. 176x113mm, cream, laid paper, no watermark. Centred, embossed address. Remains of mounting in album on blank verso.

The Public Face of Wilkie Collins III 164-165.

90. Gloucester Place,
Portman Square. W.

30 July 1877

Dear Miss Field,

Do you know --
personally or by reputation --
Mr (or Doctor?) Sayre
of New York?

The question was
put to me yesterday --
and I was obliged to
acknowledge that I had
not the honour of knowing
Dr Sayre. I may
add that the inquiry
merely related to the
medical
degree of / celebrity attained

by this gentleman in New
York. I have no
personal interest in the
question -- beyond the act
of civility implied by answering
it. If you can kindly
enlighten me with a
scratch of your pen, I
shall [be del] thankfully "receive
the same". If not,
the waste-paper basket
is at hand.

Yours always truly

W.C

Wilkie Collins

NOTES

	Mary Katherine Keemle Field (1838-1896) was an American writer and actor. She was also an advocate of women's rights. She first met Wilkie Collins in 1873 and they became friends. Kate Field published a biography of the actor Charles Fechter in 1882 to which Wilkie contributed a 20 page chapter. She is said to have had a romantic involvement with Anthony Trollope.
A crayon drawing of Kate Field by Venderweyde, London 1878

Dr Lewis Albert Sayre 1820-1900 was an orthopaedic doctor, specialising in children's medicine. However, in 1870 he drew a correlation between an orthopaedic malady in a boy and the foreskin. He then established what he believed was a connection between the foreskin and a wide range of conditions including rheumatism and gout and prescribed circumcision for their cure. Perhaps Wilkie's interest as a lifelong sufferer from gout was not so much for a 'friend' as for himself.