Item Info

Accession Number: 2006-36
Physical Description: [3] pages
Transcription:

Broadstairs, Kent.

Thirteenth September 1848.

Sir

Messrs. Chapman and Hall have forwarded your letter to me, but not your Manuscript--acting on a general request from me not to forward any documents, except at my desire.

I regret that I cannot serve you in reference to your book. I never read Manuscripts; for I am asked to do so, by so many correspondents, that compliance would be impossible, and would leave me no leisure for any other kind of occupation. And even if I were to read yours, and to think it good, my opinion would not serve you in the least, as a publisher would prefer his own, and act upon it. I state what I know of my own experience, in this regard, and not what I believe.

In begging, therefore, to be excused from complying with your request, I do what is at once imperative upon myself, and plainest and fairest towards you.

I am Sir

Your faithful Servant

Charles Dickens

P.S. I must add, that in answering an anonymous letter, I deviate from my usual course; as I hold no person justified in adopting that most objectionable form of address, or entitled to expect a reply.

MssDate: Thirteenth September 1848
Media Type: Letters
Source: Rare Book Department
Provenance: M. Silverma, 2005-11

Bibliography:

The Letters of Charles Dickens, Volume Five: 1847-1849, ed. Graham Storey and K. J. Fielding. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981,  p. 407.

Country: Creation Place Note:Broadstairs
Country:England
City/Town/Township:Kent

Creation Year: 1848
Call Number: DL Z 1848-09-13
Creator Name: Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 - Author