Item Info

Accession Number: 87-288
Physical Description: [4] pages
Transcription:

                                                                                     Tavistock House,

Tavistock Square, London, W. C.

                                                                                                                  Tuesday March Sixteenth 1858

 

My Dear Evans,

            I want you to consider this letter as being strictly private ad confidential between you and me. I am anxious to have your soundest opinion on the point it refers to you, and I shall give it great weight—though I do not, of course, pledge myself to be bound by it.

            The Reading idea that I had, some time ago, sticks to me. Let me read where I will, an effect is produced which seems to belong to nothing else; and the number of people who want to come, cannot by any means be got in. I have in my mind this project:--

            After reading in London on the 15^th. of next month for the Benefit of the children’s Hospital, to announce by advertisement (what is quite true), that I cannot answer the applications that are made to me, so numerous are they, and that compliance with ever so few of them is in any reason impossible. That therefore I have resolved upon a course of Readings both in town and country, and that those in London will take place at St. Martins Hall on certain evenings—four or six Thursdays—through May, and just into June.

            Then, in August, September, and October, in the Eastern Counties, the West of England, Lancashire, Yorkshire, ad Scotland, I should read from 35 to 40 times. At each place where there was a great success, I should myself announce that I should come back, on the turn of Christmas, to read a new Christmas Story written for the purpose (and which I should first read in London). Unless I am gigantically mistaken,--by March or April a very large sum of money would be cleared—and Ireland would be still untouched; not to speak of America, where I believe I could make (if I could resolve to go there) ten thousand pounds.

            Now, the question I want your opinion on is this:--Assuming these hopes to be well-grounded, would such an use of the personal (I may almost say affectionate) relations which subsist between me and the public, and make my standing with them very peculiar, at all affect my position with them as a writer? Would it be likely to have any influence on my next book? If it had any influence at all, would it be likely to be of a weakening or a strengthening kind?

            (It is not to the purpose of this point, to remark that I should confide the whole of the Business arrangements to Arthur Smith. I merely mention it, that you may have the whole case).

                                                                                                Ever Faithfully

                                                                                                            CHARLES DICKENS

MssDate: Tuesday March Sixteenth 1858
Media Type: Letters
Source: Rare Book Department
Recipient: Evans, Frederick Mullet
Provenance: Elkins, William M. 8/5/47

Bibliography:

 The Letters of Charles Dickens, Volume Eight: 1856-1858, ed. Graham Storey and Kathleen Tillotson. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995,  p. 532.

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

Creation Year: 1858
Call Number: DL Ev15 1858-03-16
Creator Name: Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 - Author