BIB_ID
419938
Accession number
MA 1352.29
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Display Date
London, England, 1843 June 2.
Credit line
Purchased with the assistance of the Fellows, 1951.
Description
1 item (4 pages) ; 18.1 x 11.2 cm + envelope
Notes
Envelope with seal and Dickens' signature to "Miss Coutts / Stratton Street."
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 / Second June 1843."
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 / Second June 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
Expressing his thanks and enclosing a note written at the suggestion of Mr. Majoribanks; commenting, at length, on Lady Sale; saying "Lady Sale, I renounce for ever. And I here register a vow to look upon her henceforth with an eye, colder and duller than a Fish's. Nor will I ever envy her Husband - her dog- her maid - nor anything that is her's, except the memory of her departed Son in Law. He must have had a blessed release; and I have no doubt is in an uncommon state of Peace. If his wife took after her mother, I believe more implicitly than I ever did, that every bullet has its billet, and that there is a Special Providence in the Fall of a Sparrow;" confirming the date and time of a visit; adding "There is a terrible paper on Theodore Hook, in the last Quarterly - admirably written, as I think, from its internal evidence by Lockhart. I have not seen anything for a long time so very moving. It fills me with grief and sorrow. Men have been chained to hideous prison walls and other strange anchors 'ere now, but few have known such suffering and bitterness at one time or other, as those who have been bound to Pens. A pleasant thought for one who has been using this very quill all day!"
Catalog link
Department