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HW:

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THE LETTERS

OF

[HW: Charles Dickens]




THE LETTERS

OF

CHARLES DICKENS.

EDITED BY

HIS SISTER-IN-LAW AND HIS ELDEST DAUGHTER.

In Two Volumes.

VOL. I.

1833 to 1856.

London:

CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.

1880.

[_The Right of Translation is Reserved._]




CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS,

CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.

                     TO

               KATE PERUGINI,

        THIS MEMORIAL OF HER FATHER

           IS LOVINGLY INSCRIBED

          BY HER AUNT AND SISTER.




PREFACE.


We intend this Collection of Letters to be a Supplement to the "Life of
Charles Dickens," by John Forster. That work, perfect and exhaustive as
a biography, is only incomplete as regards correspondence; the scheme of
the book having made it impossible to include in its space any letters,
or hardly any, besides those addressed to Mr. Forster. As no man ever
expressed _himself_ more in his letters than Charles Dickens, we believe
that in publishing this careful selection from his general
correspondence we shall be supplying a want which has been universally
felt.

Our request for the loan of letters was so promptly and fully responded
to, that we have been provided with more than sufficient material for
our work. By arranging the letters in chronological order, we find that
they very frequently explain themselves and form a narrative of the
events of each year. Our collection dates from 1833, the commencement of
Charles Dickens's literary life, just before the starting of the
"Pickwick Papers," and is carried on up to the day before his death, in
1870.

We find some difficulty in being quite accurate in the arrangements of
letters up to the end of 1839, for he had a careless habit in those days
about dating his letters, very frequently putting only the day of the
week on which he wrote, curiously in contrast with the habit of his
later life, when his dates were always of the very fullest.

A blank is made in Charles Dickens's correspondence with his family by
the absence of any letter addressed to his daughter Kate (Mrs.
Perugini), to her great regret and to ours. In 1873, her furniture and
other possessions were stored in the warehouse of the Pantechnicon at
the time of the great fire there. All her property was destroyed, and,
among other things, a box of papers which included her letters from her
father.

It was our intention as well as our desire to have thanked,
individually, every one--both living friends and representatives of dead
ones--for their readiness to give us every possible help to make our
work complete. But the number of such friends, besides correspondents
hitherto unknown, who have volunteered contributions of letters, make it
impossible in our space to do otherwise than to express, collectively,
our earnest and heartfelt thanks.

A separate word of gratitude, however, must be given by us to Mr. Wilkie
Collins for the invaluable help which we have received from his great
knowledge and experience, in the technical part of our work, and for
the deep interest which he has shown from the beginning, in our
undertaking.

It is a great pleasure to us to have the name of Henry Fielding Dickens
associated with this book. To him, for the very important assistance he
has given in making our Index, we return our loving thanks.

In writing our explanatory notes we have, we hope, left nothing out
which in any way requires explanation from us. But we have purposely
made them as short as possible; our great desire being to give to the
public another book from Charles Dickens's own hands--as it were, a
portrait of himself by himself.

Those letters which need no explanation--and of those we have many--we
give without a word from us.

In publishing the more private letters, we do so with the view of
showing him in his homely, domestic life--of showing how in the midst of
his own constant and arduous work, no household matter was considered
too trivial to claim his care and attention. He would take as much pains
about the hanging of a picture, the choosing of furniture, the
superintending any little improvement in the house, as he would about
the more serious business of his life; thus carrying out to the very
letter his favourite motto of "What is worth doing at all is worth doing
well."

                                          MAMIE DICKENS.
                                          GEORGINA HOGARTH.

        LONDON: _October_, 1879.





ERRATA.

VOL. I.


  Page 111, line 6. For "because if I hear of you," _read_ "because I hear
            of you."

    "  114, line 24. For "any old end," _read_ "or any old end."

    "  137. First paragraph, second sentence, _should read_, "All the
            ancient part of Rome is wonderful and impressive in the
            extreme, far beyond the possibility of exaggeration. As to
            the," etc.

    "  456, line 11. For "Mr." _read_ "Mrs."




Book I.

1833 TO 1842.




THE

LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS.




1833 OR 1834, AND 1835, 1836.

NARRATIVE.


We have been able to procure so few early letters of any general
interest that we put these first years together. Charles Dickens was
then living, as a bachelor, in Furnival's Inn, and was engaged as a
parliamentary reporter on _The Morning Chronicle_. The "Sketches by Boz"
were written during these years, published first in "The Monthly
Magazine" and continued in _The Evening Chronicle_. He was engaged to be
married to Catherine Hogarth in 1835--the marriage took place on the 2nd
April, 1836; and he continued to live in Furnival's Inn with his wife
for more than a year after their marriage. They passed the summer months
of that year in a lodging at Chalk, near Gravesend, in the neighbourhood
associated with all his life, from his childhood to his death. The two
letters which we publish, addressed to his wife as Miss Hogarth, have no
date, but were written in 1835. The first of the two refers to the offer
made to him by Chapman and Hall to edit a monthly periodical, the
emolument (which he calls "too tempting to resist!") to be fourteen
pounds a month. The bargain was concluded, and this was the starting of
"The Pickwick Papers." The first number was published in March, 1836.
The second letter to Miss Hogarth was written after he had completed
three numbers of "Pickwick," and the character who is to "make a decided
hit" is "Jingle."

The first letter of this book is addressed to Henry Austin, a friend
from his boyhood, who afterwards married his second sister Letitia. It
bears no date, but must have been written in 1833 or 1834, during the
early days of his reporting for _The Morning Chronicle_; the journey on
which he was "ordered" being for that paper.


[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]

                           FURNIVAL'S INN, _Wednesday Night, past 12._

DEAR HENRY,

I have just been ordered on a journey, the length of which is at present
uncertain. I may be back on Sunday very probably, and start again on the
following day. Should this be the case, you shall hear from me before.

Don't laugh. I am going (alone) in a gig; and, to quote the eloquent
inducement which the proprietors of Hampstead _chays_ hold out to Sunday
riders--"the gen'l'm'n drives himself." I am going into Essex and
Suffolk. It strikes me I shall be spilt before I pay a turnpike. I have
a presentiment I shall run over an only child before I reach Chelmsford,
my first stage.

Let the evident haste of this specimen of "The Polite Letter Writer" be
its excuse, and

Believe me, dear Henry, most sincerely yours,

                                                 [HW: Charles Dickens]

NOTE.--To avoid the monotony of a constant repetition, we propose to
dispense with the signature at the close of each letter, excepting to
the first and last letters of our collection. Charles Dickens's
handwriting altered so much during these years of his life, that we have
thought it advisable to give a facsimile of his autograph to this our
first letter; and we reproduce in the same way his latest autograph.


[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

                            FURNIVAL'S INN, _Wednesday Evening, 1835._

MY DEAREST KATE,

The House is up; but I am very sorry to say that I must stay at home. I
have had a visit from the publishers this morning, and the story cannot
be any longer delayed; it must be done to-morrow, as there are more
important considerations than the mere payment for the story involved
too. I must exercise a little self-denial, and set to work.

They (Chapman and Hall) have made me an offer of fourteen pounds a
month, to write and edit a new publication they contemplate, entirely by
myself, to be published monthly, and each number to contain four
woodcuts. I am to make my estimate and calculation, and to give them a
decisive answer on Friday morning. The work will be no joke, but the
emolument is too tempting to resist.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: The same.]

                                                     _Sunday Evening._

       *       *       *       *       *

I have at this moment got Pickwick and his friends on the Rochester
coach, and they are going on swimmingly, in company with a very
different character from any I have yet described, who I flatter myself
will make a decided hit. I want to get them from the ball to the inn
before I go to bed; and I think that will take me until one or two
o'clock at the earliest. The publishers will be here in the morning, so
you will readily suppose I have no alternative but to stick at my desk.

       *       *       *      