BIB_ID
420889
Accession number
MA 1352.170
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Display Date
London, England, 1849 July 21.
Credit line
Purchased with the assistance of the Fellows, 1951.
Description
1 item (2 pages) ; 22.2 x 18.7 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 / Twenty First July 1849."
Written from "Devonshire Terrace / Twenty First July 1849."
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
Concerning a request for help from Mrs. Goldsmith whom Miss Coutts had helped earlier in the year at the request of Dickens (see MA 1352.152); relating the details of her request for help in getting her son William into the Royal Naval School or "either of our younger boys - Hugh Colville, who was nine last February, or Edward, who will be seven next July" into Christ's Hospital; commenting on her request: "The last, I am afraid, is out of the question. But I have such an exalted opinion of this lady, founded upon the character her letters disclose, and the high sense of truth and honor she exhibited in that last transaction, that I venture to ask you whether, among the Powers that be, there is any one with whom you are on sufficiently friendly terms to ask the first favor from? I should conceive that it is a very slight one, and that the great name this lady bears, and her whole case altogether, would present a strong claim to any man of worth."
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