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Lot 55

DICKENS (CHARLES)

22 November 2011, 10:30 GMT
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £1,000 inc. premium

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DICKENS (CHARLES)

Autograph letter signed ("Charles Dickens") to Major Lake, explaining why he is unable to make any new engagements for the moment: "I expect a friend from Edinburgh to be staying here all next week... I have waited a day on the chance of hearing from him that he was detained in Scotland; but not doing so, conclude that he is coming tonight or tomorrow", 2 pages, 8vo, Tavistock House, 15 April 1853

Footnotes

This letter was written during publication in monthly parts of what many regard as Dickens's greatest novel, Bleak House, the April issue (Part XIV) comprising chapters 43 to 46. It is published in the Pilgrim Edition, xii, p. 649: the identity of the recipient, Major Lake, is uncertain, the editors suggesting he may be Major Edward John Lake of the Bengal Engineers (1823-1877); the dilatory guest was Dickens's friend John Gordon, a radical Scottish lawyer, who is recorded as being in London two days later.

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