To Manager New England Insurance, 9 January 1884

The Manager New England Mutual Life Insurance Company Boston Mass: U.S.A. Wilkie Collins

NOTES
The postmarks show LONDON W | Z6 | JA 9 | 84 and BOSTON | JAN | 21 | PAID. One on the reverse reads N | 1-21 84 |8A. The 2½d stamp is franked with an illegible mark.

This envelope is presumed to enclose a letter to the insurer which Collins in fact dated 10 January 1884. There is no reason why he should write two letters on subsequent days. It is possible he expected it be posted the next day but it caught the late post. That letter reads

90, GLOUCESTER PLACE, | PORTMAN SQUARE. W.| London | 10^th January 1884
Dear sir,
        Be so good as to send the customary notification, relating to the payment of my Premium of Insurance, due 12^th February next, to my agents Messrs Naylor & Co, 6. Oliver Street, as before, and believe me,
           Faithfully yrs | Wilkie Collins
To | The Manager, New England Life Insurance Company | Boston

The insurance policy for $5000 (£1000) was one of two Wilkie took out before he sailed from the USA to England in March 1874. Similar letters of 1885 and 1887 are known.