Lettre autographe signée adressée à sa soeur cadette : "Little Child, I never could possibly find the right words to tell you how deeply your dear little letter touched me"

Handwritten signed letter in English addressed to her younger sister: “Little Child, I never could possibly find the right words to tell you how deeply your dear little letter touched me”Handwritten letter signed by Renée Vivien addressed to her younger sister Antoinette Tarn, four pages written in black ink on a double leaf of headed paper from the Savoy Hotel in London.
Transverse folds from having been sent.

A very beautiful letter, full of joy, testifying to the intense relationship that Renée Vivien had with her little sister. “It would be profoundly inaccurate to believe that Renée Vivien, during her literary life (1900-199), had little contact with her family. [...] On the contrary, various documents prove that the relationships with her family – and with her sister primarily – were regular as well as affectionate.” (J.-P. Goujon, « Renée Vivien et ses masques » in à l'encart n°2 April 1980)

Our letter reveals the poet's great tenderness for her “little child” whom she showers with attention:
“I've sent you to-day some flowers and fruit which I hope will reach you safely. If not write so Solomon's and scold them soundly. I know you and Francis like fruit, – and how right you are! – but it's frightfully difficult to get any at the sea-side. So I've sent you some peaches, a bunch of black grapes and a bunch of white – also some oranges, as they are so refreshing.” La Muse aux violettes then dwells on the description of the bouquet que Toinette will receive “Then there are some flowers for you especially – some green pink roses – not the ordinary stupid pink but a sort of flashed golden... (I'm afraid this sounds like a second-rate artist, but it's so difficult to express oneself. I mean a mélange of pink and yellow) And some of the dear fragrant little lilies-of-the-valley you like.”), mixing English phrases and French vocabulary with humor:
“I'm talking you all this, my little Darling, en personne pratique, as if the things don't arrive all right, you can réclamer.”

Renée Vivien's correspondence is not usually marked with such joy, and it is in a new light that this letter reveals the optimistic and reassuring sister that she was:
“(last night was horrible by the way – crises d'estomac and nightmare combined) But to-day I'm blithe and merry and feel sur this night will be a good one, as good and bad almost invariably alternate. However, even the bad nights aren't quite so bad, as then I compose poetry or write little prose-poems or pièces of théâtre and thus turn insomnia to good account.”
However, at that time, the poet's health deteriorated considerably, alcohol and chloral hydrate abuse caused her chronic gastritis. In this painful and yet prolific moment, Renée thinks of her sister and, in this year 1909, – her last among the living – she asks Sansot, her publisher, to publish a booklet entitled
à ma sœur, printed on Japan paper with few copies and whose colophon explains: « Achevé d'imprimer le XVIII novembre MCMIX par E. Sansot éditeur [...] pour Pauline Tarn décédée ce même-jour » (“Printing completed on XVIII November MCMIX by E. Sansot publisher [...] for Pauline Tarn who died this same day”). This "heavy poem"and intimate testament speaks of the important place that Toinette occupied in Renée's life, who is the godmother of her son Paul, also mentioned in this letter:
"I so often think of you, and the lovely country, and little Paul [...]! Give the Darling a great kiss from his absent Aunt." The child was baptized Paul (a very rare name in England at the time) in honor of his aunt, and in 1911, Toinette gave birth to a daughter whom she names Renée in tribute to her late sister.

The tender letters from Sappho 1900 to her family, through periods of her suffering, are of great rarity.