The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ,1 12 DECEMBER 1855

Text from facsimile in the possession of Dietmar Böhnke.

Replaces extracts (aa) in Pilgrim Letters 7, p. 764.

aParis, 49 Avenue des Champs Elyséesa

Monday aDecember Twelfth, 1855

My Dear Sir

Will you tell me what you think of the enclosed proposal,2 and whether you would accept an agreement on such terms if you were in my place? I shall not make any arrangement for such a translation at any time, without first consulting you.a

Very faithfully Yours

CHARLES DlCKENS

Le Chevalier Bernhard Tauchnitz

• 1. Baron Bernhard Christian Tauchnitz (1816-95), publisher, of Leipzig. Born at Schleinitz; nephew of the publisher Karl Tauchnitz. Founded his own firm in Leipzig in 1837. The firm began its “Collection of British Authors” Sep 41 with Bulwer Lytton’s Pelham. Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, and American Notes had appeared before the end of 1842, and Nicholas Nickleby in June 43. He and CD became friendly, and CD sent Charley to Leipzig to learn German (see below). According to John Forster, Tauchnitz always paid liberally. He wrote to Forster after CD’s death: “All Mr Dickens’s works have been published under agreement by me. My intercourse with him lasted nearly twenty-seven years. The first of his letters dates in October 1843, and his last at the close of March, 1870 [see To Tauchnitz, 31 March 1870]. Our long relations were not only never troubled by the least disagreement, but were the occasion of most hearty personal feeling; and I shall never lose the sense of his kind and friendly nature. On my asking him his terms for Edwin Drood, he replied, ‘Your terms shall be mine.’” (John Forster, The Life of Charles Dickens, ed. J.W.T. Ley [London: Cecil Palmer, 1928], p. 807n).
• 2. CD proposed a French translation of his collected works; for details see To Hachette et Cie, 7 Dec 1855, in Pilgrim Letters 7, p. 759.