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Kivar Paperback, 2-Volume Set, 9-Point Type
About This Product
Introduction
These volumes provide the full text of a large number of original letters of John Nelson Darby, mostly to George Vicesimus Wigram. They constitute a substantial proportion of the original letters of J.N. Darby which have been thus far identified, and the majority of them have never been printed before. Some were printed in part in the three volumes of Letters of JND which were published in the later 1880’s, but then most of the allusions to individuals and places were omitted.
The body of letters which is the basis of this edition is a remarkable survival and its history unique. Shortly after the death of John Nelson Darby in 1882, one of his executors, Christopher McAdam (1807-92) must have agreed with Dennis Lambart Higgins, an executor of G.V. Wigram (who had died in 1879) to amalgamate the correspondence between the two, and it was kept in a small metal deed box labelled “Property of C McAdam and D L Higgins”. The letters from Mr. Darby were presumably among the Wigram papers, and the Wigram letters among the papers of Mr. Darby; the fact that Farnham Chidley Close (died 1901), a banker in London, was an executor of both wills, may have facilitated the amalgamation of the papers. The presence of both sides of correspondence is a great advantage for understanding letters, and particular allusions in them; and for this reason the pages which follow include, besides the letters of J.N. Darby, much of the content of the letters written to him by G.V. Wigram.