Letter from Charles Dickens, London, to Angela Burdett-Coutts, 1852 April 18 : autograph manuscript signed.

Discussing, at length and in detail, his argument for building larger houses for the working-class poor rather than smaller tenement houses; saying "If you go into any common outskirts of the town, now, and see the advancing army of brick and mortar laying waste the country fields and shutting out the air, you cannot fail to be struck by the consideration that if large buildings had been erected for the working people, instead of the absurd and expensive separate walnut shells in which they live, London would have been about a third of its present size, and every family would have had a country walk, miles nearer to their own door. Besides this, men would have been nearer to their work - would not have had to dine at public houses - there would have been thicker walls of separation and better means of separation than you can ever give (except at a preposterous cost) in small tenements - and they would have had gas, water, drainage, and a variety of other humanizing things which you can't give them so well in little houses;" discussing projects in Manchester and Yorkshire; enclosing "Charley's papers. I am having some grave councils with him in reference to the future, and I will report the result to you very soon."