BIB_ID
420668
Accession number
MA 1352.106
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Display Date
London, England, 1848 May 24.
Credit line
Purchased with the assistance of the Fellows, 1951.
Description
1 item (5 pages) ; 18.0 x 11.5 cm + envelope
Notes
Envelope with seal and Dickens' signature to "Miss Burdett Coutts / Stratton Street."
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 / Wednesday Twenty Fourth May / 1848."
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 / Wednesday Twenty Fourth May / 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
Explaining that he has to keep a promise to attend a private reading by Miss Kelly and then he will be going out of town for ten or twelve days; saying "I have set my heart on seeing Sheridan Knowles installed at Stratford on Avon, as the Curator of Shakespeare's House - the only and the best resource I know for him - and am going, in advance of my troupe, to interest the sympathies of his friends in that town, and in Liverpool, and Manchester - at the same time pursuing those other observations I have in my mind, and mentioned to you yesterday;" reporting on his meeting with the maker of Venetian blinds; referring to an offer "...to be returned, free of expence, for one of the largest Metropolitan boroughs, and I believe I could be brought in, very triumphantly. But considerations of the greater peace and happiness of my own pursuits - to say nothing of the butcher and baker - hold me back, gently, as they have done twice before. To which I add the reflection, - if I did come out in that way, what a frightful Radical you would think me!"
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