Prolific English engineer and one of the most important people in the history of aeronautics (1773–1857). Many consider him the first true scientific aerial investigator and the first person to understand the underlying principles and forces of flight. ALS signed “Geo. Cayley,” three pages on two adjoining sheets, 4.5 x 7, September 11, 1857. Cayley writes a flattering letter to a female acquaintance, Anabella Locevence. In part: “Altho’ I have never had the same opportunity of becoming as much acquainted with you as with your sisters, yet I have full faith in the Locevence blood and I send you my greetings. The real fact is, & it must be told, that you have made me too vane to have much sober sense left, by telling lady style that you might have given your hand to me in preference to any other man at present known. Now altho’ I make not the smallest doubt that this was said in joke, yet when a beautiful woman thus opens the way to confidence, even a man of 84 cannot refrain from feeling his heart touched. The result is that I have just ordered Vapsli to send you a similar necklace to those I gave your sisters…you may recollect me when you count your beads. I consider that I have thus made love in grand style! And now for a trifle of common sense—I have been made happy this morning by having…my daughter Ann all here together and all in good health and enjoyment. Altho’ Ann suffers from occasional fits of indigestion.” In very good condition, with central intersecting folds, scattered wrinkling, a few spots of soiling, and irregular staining and show-through from adhesive and past mounting remnants on the reverse of the signed page.
In 1799, more than a century before the Wright Brothers, Cayley engraved the design for an airplane on a small silver disc—the earliest recorded description of the concept. Throughout the early 1800s, he published prolific findings on flight, as well as reports on an aviation engine, optics, prosthetics, political and economic reform, and railway safety. As he neared the end of his life, Cayley enjoyed the attention paid him by this young miss...a brief respite from what was a convoluted personal life. While brilliantly advancing the idea of flight, Cayley was caught up in a family life complicated by the religious fervor his mother, the mental instability of his wife, and the needs of six daughters and an unruly son. A delightfully charming letter from an aeronautical pioneer who quite believably professes, “when a beautiful woman thus opens the way to confidence, even a man of 84 cannot refrain from feeling his heart touched.” RRAuction COA.
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