Item Info

Accession Number: 84-1264
Physical Description: [1] page
Material: paper
Transcription:

                                                                                                                                       Saturday Fourth July 1857.
Sir

           I beg to say in reply to your letter, that I shall be happy to take charge of the subscription to which it refers; but that I can only do so, on behalf of this committee, by recording it as payment for a ticket or tickets for one or more of the occasions set forth on the other side. In remitting it, you will do me the favor perhaps, to let me know what tickets shall be sent to you.
          as the body whom I represent in this communication never address any solicitation or explanation to any quarter, beyond such as may be supposed to be conveyed in the printed line at the head of this sheet of paper, I can only very slightly follow your reference to the money-affairs of the late Mr. Jerrold’s family. It is not true that Mr. Jerrold left no provision whatever; but the other printed paragraph to which you refer (by whom originated I don’t know) is as preposterously exaggerated as anything I have ever seen in my life.
                                               I am Sir
                                                        Your faithful Servant          
                                                                 Charles Dickens 
Mr William Irvine.

MssDate: Saturday Fourth July 1857
Media Type: Letters
Source: Rare Book Department
Notes:

The printed paragraph refered to here  is probably a letter signed "Anti-Humbug", which appeared in Reynolds" Weekly Newspaper, 5 July. Sunday papers were published a few days earlier. The letter alleging "the cruel neglect by Mr. Jerrold of the most sacred duties and ties", stated that Douglas Jerrold had for some years before his death made "at least 2,000lbs a year—Yet he never insured his life, and has left his family without a shilling...he spent all he had in indulgence, and left his family to the charity of the public, or rather to the whim and vanity of "a set." Those who went to Jerrold's funeral, to connect themselves with "the set" —" a certain literary and dramtatic league" (CD, Thackeray, Carlyle, Tennyson and Paxton are mentioned) were accused of "cliquism", "snobbery" and "flunkeyism". 

Recipient: Irvine, William
Provenance: Holmes, 5/1984, Gratz Fund.

Bibliography:

Volume 8, p.365, The Letters of Charles Dickens, edited by Madeline House & Graham Storey; associate editors, W.J. Carlton…[et al.]

Country: Creation Place Note:Committee's Office, Gallery of Illustration, Regent Street
Country:England
City/Town/Township:London

Call Number: DL Ir8 1857-07-04
Creator Name: Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 - Author