Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Letter from Charles Dickens, London, to Angela Burdett-Coutts, 1843 May 12 : autograph manuscript signed.

BIB_ID
419931
Accession number
MA 1352.27
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Display Date
London, England, 1843 May 12.
Credit line
Purchased with the assistance of the Fellows, 1951.
Description
1 item (2 pages) ; 18.4 x 11.3 cm + envelope
Notes
Envelope with seal and Dickens' signature to "Miss Coutts."
The letter is part of a collection, MA 1352, which consists of letters from Charles Dickens to the Baroness, to her companion Hannah (Meredith) Brown, or the latter's husband, William Brown; with 70 letters written by others to Miss Coutts or to Dickens in his capacity as her unofficial almoner; and a few others. See the collection-level record for more information.
Written from "Devonshire Terrace / Twelfth May 1843."
Provenance
The letters formed part of the Burdett-Coutts sale (Sotheby, 17 May 1922); they were purchased for Oliver W. Barrett in whose collection they remained until it was sold by his son (Parke-Bernet, 31 October 1951).
Summary
Concerning his appeal to her to help his brother find employment and thanking her for her kindness; saying "I will take care that my brother immediately acts upon the hint contained in the letter you sent me yesterday. It was a previous knowledge of the perfect truth of all that is stated there, in respect to Railway Making, that first suggested to me the expediency of finding him some other pursuit, if I possibly could. And I still think that if I could get him out to some better sphere of action - as to India - I should do him, as an active and intelligent young man, the best service. Whatever he may get, or fail to get, I cannot be more truly grateful to you than I am."