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Letter from Charles Dickens, London, to Angela Burdett-Coutts, 1855 July 12 : autograph manuscript signed.

BIB_ID
420655
Accession number
MA 1352.436
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Display Date
London, England, 1855 July 12.
Credit line
Purchased with the assistance of the Fellows, 1951.
Description
1 item (3 pages) ; 17.9 x 11.2 cm + envelope
Notes
Written from "Tavistock House."
Envelope with stamp and postmarks: "Miss Burdett Coutts / Holly Lodge / Highgate."
George Haslehurst's letter of appeal to Miss Burdett-Coutts dated July 9, 1855 has been preserved and is cataloged as MA 1352.645.
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
Giving his opinion of the poet George Haslehurst, who has applied to her for aid; saying that his mention of Thomas Noon Talfourd means nothing, as Talfourd was indiscriminately generous, and he finds Haslehurst suspicious and not deserving of relief; cautioning her against assisting the writer John Taylor Sinnett and calling him a "rather speculative gentleman [...] I doubt if his treatise would ever be published, if you subscribed to it ; and I have practical reason to believe that if you began to give him anything, you would find him a persevering correspondent;" mentioning that he has received "two more excessively urgent letters" from Antonina Matthews.