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, 1854 December 26 : autograph manuscript signed.

BIB_ID
420456
Accession number
MA 1352.393
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Display Date
London, England, 1854 December 26.
Credit line
Purchased with the assistance of the Fellows, 1951.
Description
1 item (2 pages) ; x cm + envelope
Notes
Signed with initials.
Written from "Tavistock House."
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
Wishing her "[m]any many merry Christmases and Happy New Years;" inviting her on behalf of his wife and himself to come see "the children's Fairy-play [...] Fortunio and his seven gifted Servants;" mentioning that he is heading to Bradford but will be back for the anniversary dinner of the Commercial Travellers' Schools on Saturday; saying that his reading of A Christmas Carol in Reading was "a most rapturous affair" and sending her an account of it; writing in a postscript that he wishes she could see the children rehearsing for the play, "and the gravity and business of the proceedings."