BIB_ID
291278
Accession number
MA 113.69
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Display Date
1851 Oct. 1.
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1894.
Description
1 item (7 p.) ; 18 cm
Notes
Part of a large collection of letters from Charles Dickens to his brother-in-law Henry Austin. Items in the collection are described separately; see MA 113 for more information.
Written from Broadstairs, on mourning paper. Signed "Charles Dickens."
Written from Broadstairs, on mourning paper. Signed "Charles Dickens."
Provenance
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan from the London dealer J. Pearson & Co. in 1894.
Summary
Discussing renovations to Tavistock House. Discussing servants' bells, the kitchen range, wirework, the bathroom, coals, bookcases, the staircase, and their proposed appointment for Sunday. Stating adamantly that the bath must be partitioned off from the W.C., as "the Bather would be happier and easier in mind, if the W.C. did not demonstrate itself obtrusively." Noting that Dickens has "not sufficient confidence in [his] strength of mind, to think that [he] could begin the business of every day, with the enforced contemplation of the outside of that box," and that he believes it "would affect [his] bowels" and must therefore ask Austin to "mask the W.C."
Catalog link
Department