Autograph letter signed ("Charles Dickens"), to "Dear Miss Marryat", concerning a story that he refuses to publish: he upbraids her for being utterly unreasonable in her demands upon him ("...You have no idea of the labor inseparable from the editing of such a Journal as All The Year Round, when you suppose it within the bounds of possibility that those who discharge such duties can give critical reasons for the rejection of papers. To read professed contributions honestly, and communicate a perfectly unprejudiced decision respecting every one of them to its author or authoress, is a task, of the magnitude of which you evidently have no conception..."); and in sorrow invokes the shade of her father [Frederick Marryat] ("...your name is associated with an old friend and a great regard..."); he also reminds her that, as an editor, he has "but one object and one interest – to get the best writing possible"; and concludes by condemning her story in the very strongest terms: "I cannot, however, alter what seems to me to be the fact regarding this story (for instance), any more than I can alter my eyesight or my hearing. I do not deem it suitable for my Journal. You ask me to pass my pen over the paragraphs which displease me. Surely that is scarcely reasonable. I do not think it is a good story. I think its leading incident is common-place, and one that would require for its support some special observation of character, or strength of dialogue, or happiness of description. I do not find any of these sustaining qualities in it. I am not interested in the young people, therefore, and I cannot put away from myself the unfortunate belief that the readers of All The Year Round would not be interested in them"; telling her that he must therefore return the story "where I would five hundred thousand times rather have the pleasure of accepting it"; subscribed in pencil, in a nineteenth-century hand: "addressed to Miss Florence Marryat", 3 pages, engraved heading, 8vo, Tavistock House, 13 February 1860