Author: Jerome, Jerome K.

Format: Autograph letter signed to Mr Cook and dated “25.11.03.”

Printed letterhead “Gould’s Grove, Wallingford”, 2pp [one double-sided sheet], 15 x 9.4cm.

Text reads “We are off this week to Brussels for the winter, so unfortunately I cannot be with you. Ought not something serious to be attempted in regard to the Coleridge case? I have just written to The Daily News promising £5. Our enemies are jubilant evidently featuring us in sack cloth & ashes. With kind regards. Yours very truly, J.K. Jerome.”

Jerome K. Jerome (English, 1859–1927), writer and humorist best known for Three Men in a Boat, is referring to the Brown Dog affair of Coleridge vs. Bayliss, a political controversy about vivisection that raged in Britain from 1903, and which found in favour of William Bayliss, physician. The Daily News asked for donations to cover barrister Stephen Coleridge’s costs, to which Jerome subscribed, and regarded Mr Coleridge’s actions as “a gallant attack upon the forces of barbarity.” Ref: Wiki; The New Irish Jurist, vol. 4, p18, 27.11.1903.

Crinkles, minor foxing.