Item Info

Accession Number: 63-709
Physical Description: [2] pages
Material: paper
Transcription:

Tavistock House Tavistock Square
                Monday Fifteenth March 1852
My Dear Sir
                It is with great unwillingness that I resist the appeal you make to me. But similar invitations are proposed to me by scores and by hundreds – so that it is really no small part of the business of my life to answer them. Acceptance being impossible, with any reasonable regard to my pursuits or relaxations, I am obliged to single out two public dinners (very rarely more) in the beginning of a season, to which I will go. And those two selected, I am obliged to be as inflexible to all others as the statue near your windows. I stand committed to preside for the Gardeners, and to appear, like a dutiful Trustee, at the General Theatrical Fund. This shuts me up, double locks, bars, bolts, and chains me. I am not to be broken open by any kind of implement known.
                                Very faithfully Yours
                                Charles Dickens
H. Compton Esquire

MssDate: Monday Fifteenth March 1852
Media Type: Letters
Source: Rare Book Department
Recipient: Compton, Henry, 1805-1877
Provenance: Purchased from Richards, 1963. Matlack Fund.

Bibliography:

Volume 6, p. 625, The Letters of Charles Dickens, edited by Madeline House & Graham Storey ; associate editors, W.J. Carlton … [et al.].

Country: Creation Place Note:Tavistock House, Tavistock Square
Country:England
City/Town/Township:London

Call Number: DL C739h 1852-03-15
Creator Name: Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 - Author