ha!’ and you know that he is cursing fate with a bitterness loud and deep. always and in all things poor Altamont is exquisitely, indescribably ludicrous." In April 1879, he was still at the Haymarket, appearing in Bulwer-Lytton's play Money as Sir Frederick Blount. Last years and family In the autumn of 1879, after a long summer fishing trip, Sothern was on another American tour. The Era wrote in October 1879 that "It is proposed, during Mr Sothern's [American] engagement, to bring out revivals of The Crushed Tragedian, Dundreary, and David Garrick, the new comedy by Mr Gilbert being reserved for the spring engagement." On 29 February 1880 The Era reported: "Mr Sothern says that, although his new comedy, by Mr Gilbert, has cost him 3,000 guineas, he would not take 6,000 guineas for it now. It is a piece of the wildest absurdity ever perpetrated, and all the parts are immense." The same issue of The Era states that definite plans had been made for Sothern to appear at the Gaiety Theatre, London in Foggerty's Fairy, as the new play was now called, in October 1880, after the end of his American tour. Sothern had been ill for much of the time since the fall, although he fulfilled his performing commitments. He returned to England for a six-week holiday in June 1880, still planning to produce Fogerty's Fairy in New York. After one illness and a short European tour, Sothern fell seriously ill in the fall, and his health declined until he died in January 1881, never having performed Gilbert's play. Sothern died at his home in Cavendish Square, London, at the age of 54 and is buried in Southampton Old Cemetery, Southampton. He was such a notorious practical joker that many of his friends missed his funeral, thinking it was a joke. His sister, Mary Cowan, was the principal beneficiary of his last will, signed shortly before his death. A previous will had given most of the estate to his widow and children. Sothern's widow contested the will but lost, and it took Cowan until 31 May 1881 to obtain probate. Gilbert suggested that she "underlet" Foggerty's Fairy to him, and he eventually had it produced. Sothern and his wife had four children, all of whom became actors: Lytton Edward (1851–1887), Edward Hugh (E. H.), George Evelyn Augustus T. (born 1870; who used the stage name Sam Sothern)