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, 1856 December 24 : autograph manuscript signed.

BIB_ID
420852
Accession number
MA 1352.471
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Display Date
London, England, 1856 December 24.
Credit line
Purchased with the assistance of the Fellows, 1951.
Description
1 item (2 pages) ; 18.1 x 11.3 cm + envelope
Notes
Dated "Christmas Eve."
Written from "Tavistock House."
Envelope addressed to: "Miss Burdett Coutts."
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 and Hannah Brown "[m]any, many, many happy Christmases and New Years;" thanking her for a present of letter weights: "Beautiful in themselves - 'tidy' - orderly - congenial in all such respects, they have deeper and invisible value to me, never my dear friend to be stated in words;" saying that he will come around tomorrow at 2: "You say 'Stratton Street', and to Stratton Street my Compass shall direct me."