Letter from Olivia Serres to Mr Williams, March 1822

by Alyssa Wu

Summary

In this letter, Serres addresses herself as Olive, Princess of Cumberland. She was an English imposter, meaning that she pretended to be part of the royal family for fame and money.

Serres' letter was sent March 18, 1822. It was meant for business, and addressed to a Mr Williams, who is an upholster. According to the OED, upholster in the 1760s meant meant “a dealer of small wares or second-hand articles”; books could have been included in this definition.

If we look at Serres’ previous book, The life of the author of the Letters of Junius, the Rev. James Wilmot, we see a reference to a Mr Williams as the bookseller. This could perhaps be the same Williams. If this theory is true, it makes sense that they’d be familiar with one another. The form of this letter shows its familiarity between the sender and the reciever through its failure to follow typical letter conventions— the writing is messy, there is a lack of a formal salutation at the end, and it fails to follow the typical conventions of white space.

Serres may have been meeting with Williams to discuss her second book of claims, The Princess of Cumberland's Statement to the English Nation, As to Her Application to Ministers, which was published in 1822. As Williams previously helped sell her book, she may have called the meeting to discuss if he could help sell her book again. Inside this book is a mention that the “book may be had of all booksellers". Dill may have been a servant of Serres'-- it's important to note that she does not use a "Mr" or "Mrs", which may be a sign of Dill's lower rank.

The two met near the Bell and Savage Inn. In the early 1900s, the inn was a popular meeting place; this may have been true in the past as well.