BIB_ID
421127
Accession number
MA 1352.246
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Display Date
London, England, 1852 February 9.
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 "Tavistock House / Monday Eighth February 1852." The published letter, cited below, corrects the date from the 8th of February to the 9th, saying that Monday was the 9th in 1852.
Written from "Tavistock House / Monday Eighth February 1852." The published letter, cited below, corrects the date from the 8th of February to the 9th, saying that Monday was the 9th in 1852.
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
Asking to postpone their meeting due to the "...indisposition of my fellow-counsellor in the matter of the Bethnal Green Survey;" reporting on the activities of Mary Anne Church and recommending that they not keep her, saying "It is hopeless to expect the least assistance from her relations - and, if she do not most thoroughly and entirely amend, she is not a girl with whom it will be possible to hold any lenient terms. I make this report without in the least thinking that it ought to prejudice her if she should do well in future - but, if she do not, it becomes a case of self-defence, and there will be nothing for it but to turn her out;" asking, in a postscript, "Would you care to hear my first Number [referring to Bleak House] before it comes out? If you would (though it is reading at a disadvantage to read an incomplete thing) I should be delighted to read it to you - though I needn't say that!"
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