![handwritten letter](/sites-drupal/default/files/styles/max_scale_640x640/public/field_ers_item_record_image/2021-01/Section4_TL037_website.jpg?itok=VYUvIAI3)
My John, my dear John
Augusta Gregory (1852–1932)
Letter to John Quinn
Coole Park, [March 17, 1912]
When the entire Abbey cast was arrested in Philadelphia in January 1912 and charged with immorality for their production of J.M. Synge’s Playboy of the Western World, John Quinn hurried from New York to serve as their defense lawyer, quickly winning their release and brilliantly mocking their accusers. “I think I have never felt prouder in my life” Gregory wrote. Quinn was 18 years junior to Gregory, then about to turn 60, and notably had a morbid fear of people dressed (as Gregory was) in black. But near the end of Gregory’s trip they briefly became lovers. She burnt the “dear” love notes he sent, as requested, but the lawyerly Quinn preserved hers. They offer one of the very few direct insights into Gregory’s intimate life.
This page of the letter reads, "My John, my dear John, my own John, not other people’s John, I love you, I care for you, I know you, I want you, I believe in you, I see you always. . ."
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