London Letters Home of Gus Farley Jr.

London Letters Home (1861-1865) of an American Apprentice Preparing for the Far East Tea Trade, Gus Farley Jr. (1844-1899), presents family letters and other original family materials in their historical and social context on both sides of the Atlantic. We see, through the eyes of a young American, his entry into the business culture of Dickens’ London and learn about the life and leisure of an apprentice tea-taster at the time.

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PENELOPE PELHAM WEST, was born in the USA, in Washington, D.C. but went north to Wellesley College to seek the New England roots of her family. The gift of a 17th century shoe initiated her into the pleasures of researching, traveling and writing. The inspiration for this particular book was her introduction to a cousin’s cache of 17-year old Gus Farley’s letters home to America, typescript stories of Gus as a boy and of his mother’s Christmas voyage from Sweden when she was nine.

Penelope West lives in Maine, USA in a net zero all electric house and has been interested in history and her New England family roots since her college days. But it was a cousin’s gift of a 17th century shoe, which initiated her into the pleasures of researching, traveling and writing. Her exploration into her great grandfather’s life, of which London Letters Home is the fruit, began when her cousin Rob Palmer shared his cache of Gus Farley’s letters home, along with two accounts of their family written by his Gus’ sister Eunice Farley Felton.