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, 1848 March 21 : autograph manuscript signed.

BIB_ID
420643
Accession number
MA 1352.97
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Display Date
London, England, 1848 March 21.
Credit line
Purchased with the assistance of the Fellows, 1951.
Description
1 item (3 pages) ; 18.0 x 11.3 cm
Notes
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 / Tuesday Evening / Twenty First March 1848."
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
Referring to a possible meeting he was to have had with her the following day which he cannot keep; saying "I must resign myself to Dombey (not yet finished, but whom I am lingering over, with a great desire to carry my care of him and his to the last) until, - I think, - Thursday Night. Mrs. Dickens and I would like to dine with you that day, very much indeed, but, even if I have finished by dinner-time I shall be in a foolish kind of condition where I am better left to walk about by myself. Therefore, unless I hear from you to the contrary, I will come to you (having a few things I should like to say in reference to Shepherd's Bush) on Friday at 11."