BIB_ID
196170
Accession number
MA 14007
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870, sender.
Display Date
London, England, 1839 January 21.
Credit line
Bequest of Gordon N. Ray, 1987.
Description
1 item (4 pages) ; 18.2 x 11.2 cm
Notes
Identity of recipient and date of writing from Hartley.
Written from "Doughty Street / Monday morning."
The name of the recipient in the opening address has been effaced, with some of the letters in "Forster" still discernible.
Written from "Doughty Street / Monday morning."
The name of the recipient in the opening address has been effaced, with some of the letters in "Forster" still discernible.
Provenance
Bequest of Gordon N. Ray, 1987.
Summary
Enclosing a copy of a letter addressed by Dickens to Richard Bentley (demanding a postponement of 6 months before he will begin work on the novel Barnaby Rudge), and stressing his inability and unwillingness to work on Barnaby Rudge at present, owing to his unhappiness with the small financial benefits he has reaped from the considerable commercial success of Oliver Twist, in contrast to the "immense profits" the book has "realised to its publisher, and is still realising"; emphasizing his "consciousness that my books are enriching everybody connected with them but myself", and citing the poor terms under which he is contracted to write Barnaby Rudge for Bentley's as a related source of dissatisfaction.
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