
Luke Batterham
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Senior Valuer
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.