BIB_ID
420892
Accession number
MA 1352.171
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Display Date
Bonchurch, England, 1849 August 5.
Credit line
Purchased with the assistance of the Fellows, 1951.
Description
1 item (4 pages) ; 17.8 x 11.2 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 "Winterbourne, Bonchurch / Sunday Fifth August 1849."
Written from "Winterbourne, Bonchurch / Sunday Fifth August 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
Sending her a list of Vice Presidents of the Naval School (see MA 1352.170) and "Mr. King's opinion of Charley for the half year, and his usual Memorandum; reporting on Charley's health; adding "As I am at work on Copperfield, and the going and coming between this and London is a work of time, I shall not come up to the next Committee; supposing (as I hear nothing from Shepherd's Bush) that everything is going on well;" expressing his concern for "that unlucky Drain" and saying "I am very uneasy about its remaining in its present state (it is so extremely dangerous to health) if anything reasonable can be done with it;" adding "It is delightful here, though rather cold. You will be sorry to learn, for I think you know and like him, that I had a letter from Jeffrey the day before yesterday, in which his description of his present state of health is such that I fear he will live but a short time longer. I have the greatest affection for him; and if I should receive any confirmation or aggravation of this account, should go away to Edinburgh, if it were only for an hour, to see him once more. Is there any intelligence of any of our emigrants?" adding, in a postscript, "I find that Charley's documents have a most unaccountable smell of Medicine about them, which I hope will evaporate in the Post office."
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