BIB_ID
419976
Accession number
MA 1352.36
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Display Date
Broadstairs, England, 1843 September 5.
Credit line
Purchased with the assistance of the Fellows, 1951.
Description
1 item (4 pages) ; 18.3 x 11.3 cm + envelope
Notes
Envelope with seal, postmarks and Dickens' signature to "Miss Burdett Coutts / (Lord De Grey's) / Putney."
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 "Broadstairs / Fifth September 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 "Broadstairs / Fifth September 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
Commenting on Macready's departure for America; saying "All of a sudden it occurred to me the other day that if I went to Liverpool with Macready they would bowstring his throat in New York; so tightly that not a word should come out of it upon the stage - and drive him out of the country, straightway [...] As he knows the virtuous Americans pretty well and as I think I do too, I immediately abandoned my intention. And so it came to pass that I sat down to Chuzzlewit quietly, and am now in the heart of it. Under other circumstances I should have been reporting to you this week, touching the Ragged Schools;" relating his plans to visit the schools and his intention to report back to her with his findings; relating the distractions from his writing at Broadstairs; saying "The piano is gone, and the flute is out of hearing - at Dover. But a barrel organ, a monkey, a punch, a Jim Crow, and a man who plays twenty instruments at once and doesn't get the right sound out of any one of them, are hovering in the neighbourhood. Also a blind man who was in a Sea Fight in his youth; and after playing the hundredth psalm on a flageolet, recites a description of the Engagement;" relating news of Charley and Katey and asking to be remembered to Miss Meredith.
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