BIB_ID
420846
Accession number
MA 1352.151
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Display Date
London, England, 1849 March 28.
Credit line
Purchased with the assistance of the Fellows, 1951.
Description
1 item (3 pages) ; 17.8 x 11.1 cm + envelope
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 / Twenty Eighth March 1849."
Envelope with seal and Dickens' signature to "Miss Burdett Coutts / Stratton Street."
Written from "Devonshire Terrace / Twenty Eighth March 1849."
Envelope with seal and Dickens' signature to "Miss Burdett Coutts / Stratton Street."
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
Discussing the weekly music lessons and telling her he will look over the papers she sent; discussing the privacy of the women and saying "I think in reference to Mrs. Morson's knowing about the girls, that her information ought to be strictly confined to such general ideas of their several characters as I can give her for her guidance, founded on some broad explanation of their several histories. First, because of the promise of confidence under which they have yielded up their secrets. And secondly because Mr. Tracey and Mr. Chesterton were strongly of opinion when the Home was first established that this was a very essential point. They find some illustration of its being so, in the Prisons, every day."
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