Item Info

Accession Number: 87-202
Physical Description: [4] pages
Material: paper
Transcription:

         Devonshire Terrace
             Wednesday Evening
                   May Thirty First 1848.

My Dear Sir
        I have been many times, intending to write to you about Augustus’s part in these theatricals, and the two or three days it will expose him to the loss of, in the country; but I have been so exceedingly closely engaged with them, in my anxiety to see the only feasible provision made for Knowles—who has literally no other—that I have always put off doing so, to some other time.
         I did not like to propose to Augustus to have no share in this undertaking, for I know Knowles well enough to believe that he would feel the default of any member of the old company—most of all, of anyone bearing my name—as a something almost personal to his recognition and assertion. But I have always felt that it would be better for Augustus, and more “business –like” altogether, to do without him on future occasion’s if any should arise.
         He and I have been talking about it tonight, and I fancy from what he tells me that you may perhaps have felt it too. I am really unwilling, however, even now, to trouble you with a word upon the subject; for I know your consideration so well, and am so unaffectedly impressed by it, that I am chary of seeming to make the least demand upon it by bringing myself to your recollection in connexion with him.
         I have been travelling for three or four days, and am almost blinded by a cold. I hope you will see to read this, better than I see to write it.
                  Always My Dear Sir
                      Very faithfully Yours
                            Charles Dickens
Thomas Chapman Esquire

MssDate: Wednesday Evening May Thirty First 1848
Media Type: Letters
Source: Rare Book Department
Notes:

In 1848 Dickens became involved with the London Shakespeare Committee, which purchased Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon. Upon learning of Knowles bankruptcy that year, Dickens organized amateur theatricals to raise money on his behalf.

Recipient: Chapman, Thomas, 1798-1885
Provenance: Hamilton, 4/1957, Matlack Fund.

Bibliography:

Volume 5, p.325, The Letters of Charles Dickens, edited by Madeline House & Graham Storey; associate editors, W.J. Carlton…[et al.]

Country: Creation Place Note:Devonshire Terrace
Country:England
City/Town/Township:London

Call Number: DL C367 1848-05-31
Creator Name: Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 - Author