Victoria (1819-1901), Queen of the United Kingdom
Autograph letter signed with initials (‘V.R.I.’) to Hallam, 2nd Baron Tennyson, Balmoral Castle, 19 October 1892
3½ pages total, 110 x 176mm, bifolium, on Balmoral Castle headed black mourning paper. Envelope. [With:] accompanying transcript in the hand of Emily Tennyson. Provenance: Sotheby's, 21 & 22 July 1980, lot 453.

Expressing heartfelt condolences to Hallam Tennyson on the death of her poet laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The queen thanks Hallam Tennyson for sending some verses 'which I conclude were the last He ever wrote', and imagines of Tennyson’s death that ‘Everything must have been most touching & beautiful & worthy of what the great Poet was – : thus "passing away" with Shakespear in his hand, the very simple & affecting departure from his own beloved Home’. She expresses great concern for Tennyson's widow and professes herself ‘anxious to have a bust of your dear Father at Windsor’, asking advice on which would be the best to have copied.

Victoria acquired a bust of Tennyson, created by Francis Williamson, a year later, in 1893.