Diplomatic Text
32b
Miʃs Purdy, whom you said you would
like to meet,[1] is to Breakfast with me, my
dear, at nine on Fryday Morning. I shall be
happy to see you at that Time if the Hour
is not too early, & am affectionately yours
E Carter
Wednesday March 26. 1783
To
Miʃs Hamilton[2]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. Miss Purdy appears here and in MS Eng 1778 38 p.3 and MS Eng 1778 40 p.2. The only other mentions so far found in The Mary Hamilton Papers are two years later, on 2 February 1785, when Hamilton ‘received a Visit from Miſs Purdey & a Sister of hers -- sensible Women & pleasing ones also’, and met her again the next day when they breakfasted and worked together at Mrs Carter's (see HAM/2/15/3 pp.51-52), and the following year, when Hamilton sent her a message via Mrs Carter (see MS Eng 1778 67 p.3).
2. The name of the addressee is split in two, with two different orientations, by unfolding.
Normalised Text
Miss Purdy, whom you said you would
like to meet, is to Breakfast with me, my
dear, at nine on Friday Morning. I shall be
happy to see you at that Time if the Hour
is not too early, & am affectionately yours
Elizabeth Carter
Wednesday March 26.
To
Miss Hamilton
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Notes
Metadata
Library References
Repository: Houghton Library Repository, Harvard University
Archive: Elizabeth Carter and Hannah More letters to Mary Hamilton
Item title: Note from Elizabeth Carter to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: MS Eng 1778 32b
Correspondence Details
Sender: Elizabeth Carter
Place sent: unknown
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 26 March 1783
Letter Description
Summary: Note from Elizabeth Carter to Mary Hamilton, inviting Hamilton to breakfast to meet a Miss Purdy.
Original entry in Houghton Library catalogue: Carter, Elizabeth, 1717-1806. Autograph manuscript letter (signed) to Mary Hamilton, 1783 March 26.
Length: 1 sheet, 000 words
Transliteration Information
Editorial declaration: First edited in the project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers' (Hannah Barker, Sophie Coulombeau, David Denison, Tino Oudesluijs, Cassandra Ulph, Christine Wallis & Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, 2019-2023).
All quotation marks are retained in the text and are represented by appropriate Unicode characters. Words split across two lines may have a hyphen on the first, the second or both fragments (reco-|ver, imperfect|-ly, satisfacti-|-on); or a double hyphen (pur=|port, dan|=ger, qua=|=litys); or none (respect|ing). Any point in abbreviations with superscripted letter(s) is placed last, regardless of relative left-right orientation in the original. Thus, Mrs. or Mrs may occur, but M.rs or Mr.s do not.
Acknowledgements: XML version first created without transcription as part of project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers', funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council under grant AH/S007121/1. Transcription added after the funded period under the supervision of David Denison and Nuria Yáñez-Bouza.
Transliterator: Pete Morris, Artificial Intelligence and Ideas Adoption (AIIA), The University of Manchester Library (Plain text transliteration submitted 26 February 2026)
Cataloguer: Bonnie B. Salt, Archivist, Houghton Library
Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors
Revision date: 28 September 2026
