BIB_ID
420149
Accession number
MA 1352.363
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Display Date
London, England, 1854 February 14.
Credit line
Purchased with the assistance of the Fellows, 1951.
Description
1 item (3 pages) ; 17.9 x 11.3 cm + envelope
Notes
Written from "Tavistock House."
Signed with initials.
Envelope with stamp and postmarks: "Miss Burdett Coutts / Holly Lodge / Highgate."
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.
Signed with initials.
Envelope with stamp and postmarks: "Miss Burdett Coutts / Holly Lodge / Highgate."
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.
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
Relaying the results of Charles Knight's visit to the impoverished Defoe family: "It is a perfectly genuine unaffected business. He [an old man, distant relative of Daniel Defoe] has a wife and daughter who take in washing -- he has had many children -- they are poor -- very clear and very industrious -- and make no wry faces. The old fellow does not even pretend to have any particular literary interest in his illustrious Ancestor. He said he had read Robinson Crusoe once (!) but confinements and funerals came very expensive, and his had been a working life, and he had never had much time for anything else;" describing the aid he and his friends have decided to give them; mentioning that he was out at Urania Cottage on Saturday and saying that he would like to confer with her about the resident Rhena Pollard who has been "persisting in telling me the most audacious lie;" adding "This leaves me in the act of cracking my head over my new story;" promising to inquire about Mrs. Goldsmith.
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