BIB_ID
421081
Accession number
MA 1352.231
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Display Date
Great Malvern, England, 1851 March 23.
Credit line
Purchased with the assistance of the Fellows, 1951.
Description
1 item (4 pages) ; 17.8 x 11.2 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 "Great Malvern / Sunday Twenty Third March 1851."
Envelope with postage stamp, postmarks and Dickens' signature to "Miss Burdett Coutts / Stratton Street / Piccadilly / London."
Written from "Great Malvern / Sunday Twenty Third March 1851."
Envelope with postage stamp, postmarks and Dickens' signature to "Miss Burdett Coutts / Stratton Street / Piccadilly / London."
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
Accepting her suggestion to include certain language in a Prospectus for a lecture series; discussing the qualities he thinks they should look for in candidates for a place [at Knebworth]; saying he suspects she objects to his acting, setting forth his reasons for doing it and encouraging her to attend a performance; saying "You will not find it like any other Amateur Plays, I think. You will be impressed by the general intelligence and good sense. And you will find a certain neatness in it which I should compare with the French stage, if you were not so profoundly English! As to the mournful spectacle of your friend upon the boards, I can only ask you to do your best to forget him. If I thought that deeply-anchored objection were capable of being argued down, I should press you, darkly to reveal it. But I have no such belief, for I think you are in your way as obstinate as - Mrs. Brown - I can't say more;" adding, in a postscript, "Charley is better. The influenza there, is beyond precedent. Five and twenty boys laid up, in Evans's house alone."
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