DICKENS, CHARLES. 1812-1870.
Autograph Letter Signed (“Charles Dickens”), 2 1/2 pp recto and verso, 8vo (conjoined leaves), Broadstairs, Kent, August 10, 1848, to T.J. Serle, nearly separated at fold, mounting remnants at hinge, else fine.
Dickens writes a light-hearted letter in mid-summer as he is busy pickling herbs. He replied to Serle in his capacity as chairman of the Elton Fund, a committee formed to raise funds for the seven orphaned children of actor Edward Elton. Dickens digresses to comment on the public’s declining taste for quality drama such as Serle produced. “Coffee” is apparently 19th-century slang for cultural events. “I am sorry the coffee has gone to the dogs instead of the men and women for whom it was intended. What a surprising time the dogs must have had of it, this year or two past! All sorts of commerce and enterprise, trades and professions, seem to have gone to them. They must have been greatly disconcerted, one would think, by the enormous number of unexpected visitors that have ‘dropped in,’ and never taken leave again. I understand that the British Drayma is kenneled somewhere near the Haymarket, where the dogs are very busy with it indeed…..” With a beautiful flourished signature, slightly smudged due to hasty dispatch.
Published in Dickens’ Letters, Pilgrim Edition, 1978.
See illustration.
Dickens writes a light-hearted letter in mid-summer as he is busy pickling herbs. He replied to Serle in his capacity as chairman of the Elton Fund, a committee formed to raise funds for the seven orphaned children of actor Edward Elton. Dickens digresses to comment on the public’s declining taste for quality drama such as Serle produced. “Coffee” is apparently 19th-century slang for cultural events. “I am sorry the coffee has gone to the dogs instead of the men and women for whom it was intended. What a surprising time the dogs must have had of it, this year or two past! All sorts of commerce and enterprise, trades and professions, seem to have gone to them. They must have been greatly disconcerted, one would think, by the enormous number of unexpected visitors that have ‘dropped in,’ and never taken leave again. I understand that the British Drayma is kenneled somewhere near the Haymarket, where the dogs are very busy with it indeed…..” With a beautiful flourished signature, slightly smudged due to hasty dispatch.
Published in Dickens’ Letters, Pilgrim Edition, 1978.
See illustration.
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Category: Books / Books, Maps and Manuscripts
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