Letter from J.W.T. Ley, Newport, Monmouthshire, to Edward Wagenknecht, 1942 May 19 : typescript with manuscript corrections signed.

Informing that he has not seen Edmund Wilson's book; musing that Wilson "is the first person to take any serious notice of Gladys Storey"; believing that it would be better not to mention DIckens' affair with Ellen Ternan while "Ellen Ternan's daughter and son still live"; informing that Lady Dickens [Marie Dickens, wife of Henry Fielding DIckens] wrote to him to express that negative stories about Dickens' personal life were not true but that she died before he could see her; further informing that "her daughter offered to see me at some later date, but the blitzes [during World War II] came and I have not been in London since"; describing Ellen Ternan; describing his relationship with Kate Perugini and Henry F. Dickens; describing a disagreement with "Viscount Mersey" [John Bigham] over a dinner at which Mersey alleged Dickens and Thackeray ate in 1865; asking for an American article on the theme of English and American cooperation; expressing pride in the "fortitude and determination of the common people" of England.