Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Letter from Charles Dickens, London, to William Brown, 1848 January 14? : autograph manuscript signed.

BIB_ID
421464
Accession number
MA 1352.600
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Display Date
London, England, 1848 January 14?.
Credit line
Purchased with the assistance of the Fellows, 1951.
Description
1 item (2 pages) ; 17.9 x 11 cm + envelope
Notes
Dickens gives only "Friday Night" for the date of writing. However, the letter has been endorsed "14 Jan 1848" and, based on the contents, appears to have been written on or near that date. See the published correspondence, cited below, for additional information.
Written from "Devonshire Terrace."
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.
Envelope with fragments of a seal and Dickens' signature to "W. Brown Esquire" and endorsed "Mr. Charles Dickens 14 Jany 1848."
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
Telling him that he had "some one with me, reading a play (in which I was not interested) and my servant brough me a note from you, saying it was from Miss Coutts. I read it hastily, and throught it applied to the moral Julia [Julia Mozley, a resident of Urania Cottage] - not the physical;" saying that the letter he wrote in reply is for both Miss Coutts and Brown, "as I have no doubt you will by this time have discovered."