Author: Letts, Charles
Biography:
LETTS, Charles (fl 1799)
No reliable information has been found that would make it possible to identify the author of Emma, or The Dying Penitent (1799), a pathetic verse narrative intended to rouse sympathy for the victims of seduction. He presents it as his first attempt at poetry and does not appear to have ventured into print again. He was not one of the original founders of Letts’s diaries, though there were Charleses in that family business later. He describes himself as Charles Letts, Jun., implying a father of the same name, but no corresponding records of his birth or baptism have been found. He describes himself also as MLLS, but the abbreviation is unfamiliar. There is no trace of him in university registers. The work is dedicated to Charles Brown, Esq., a London surgeon who had published a monograph on “scrofulous diseases” in 1798, and who presumably shared Letts’s philanthropic interest in fallen women. As to marriage and death dates, there are various candidates but nothing conclusive. (ancestry.com 9 Jan. 2024; findmypast.com 9 Jan. 2024; “Letts, John,” ODNB 9 Jan. 2024)
Other Names:
- Charles Letts, Jr.