Letter from J.W.T. Ley, Newport, Monmouthshire, to Edward Wagenknecht, 1938 March 30 : typescript signed.

Expressing pleasure that Wagenknecht and other "Dickensian friends" are impressed with the ideas in his new manuscript; expressing that "I knew the criticism you would offer" and that the flaws were the reason he never sent the manuscript for publication; asking him to mark the defects in the manuscript, at which point he will add comments on Thomas Wright's evidence on Dickens' affair with Ellen Ternan and send him a new draft and publisher suggestions; informing that he does not have to act "as my Literary Agent in this way", as Chapman and Hall might accept the manuscript; asking if he read "my fairly recent article in the Dickensian on Mary Hogarth"; informing about evidence he has "that Thomas Mitton was a cause of irritation and worse" and mentioning Catherine Dickens' dislike of certain friends of Dickens', which he dismisses as being related to "some form of mental trouble which was aggravated as middle age approached"; announcing that on Good Friday he will become Vice President of the National Union of Journalists.