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, Broadstairs, to Angela Burdett-Coutts, 1843 September 24 : autograph manuscript signed.

BIB_ID
419979
Accession number
MA 1352.37
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Display Date
Broadstairs, England, 1843 September 24.
Credit line
Purchased with the assistance of the Fellows, 1951.
Description
1 item (4 pages) ; 18.2 x 11.2 cm + envelope
Notes
Envelope with seal, postmarks and Dickens' signature to "Miss Burdett Coutts / Putney / near / London."
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 / Twenty Fourth 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
Promising to get answers to her questions with regard to the Ragged Schools; saying "There are fewer girls than boys; but the girls are more numerous that you would suppose, and much better behaved - although they are the wretchedest of the wretched. But there is much more Good in Women than in Men, however Ragged they are. People are apt to think otherwise, because the outward degradation of a woman strikes them more forcibly than any amount of hideousness in a man. They have no better reason;" relating news of Mr. Rogers and Mr. Maltby who came to visit him; sending love from his children and Mrs. Dickens and adding "I don't wonder that Miss Meredith, in her weak state, has suffered from the heat. Everybody here, has been ill from the same cause."