BIB_ID
421309
Accession number
MA 1352.290
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Display Date
London, England, 1852 September 29.
Credit line
Purchased with the assistance of the Fellows, 1951.
Description
1 item (2 pages) ; 20.2 x 12.4 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 on the letterhead of the Office of Household Words: "Wednesday Twenty Ninth September 1852 / Quarter to one."
Envelope with Dickens' signature to "Miss Burdett Coutts / Stratton Street."
Written on the letterhead of the Office of Household Words: "Wednesday Twenty Ninth September 1852 / Quarter to one."
Envelope with Dickens' signature to "Miss Burdett Coutts / Stratton Street."
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
Leaving this note for her and explaining "Not having heard from you as to any appointment for our going to Shepherd's Bush to day, I am induced to believe that you are prevented (not I hope, by Mrs. Brown's being worse) from going. And as I find among my letters one from Mr. A. Beckett proposing two new girls, I think it better to occupy what remains of my day's time in going to his Police Court to see them, than in going to Shepherd's Bush without you;" adding that he will leaving London by train that afternoon and "I am going to Boulogne for ten days or a fortnight, and then I am coming home."
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