The Charles Dickens Letters Project
To BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ,1 23 JANUARY 1854
Text from facsimile in the possession of Dietmar Böhnke.2
Replaces extract in Pilgrim Letters 7, p. 256.
Tavistock House I Monday Night Twenty Third January | 1854.
My Dear Sir.
I received by Charley3 when he came home for his christmas holidays, a letter from Dr Müller4 of a nature very honorable to the Doctor's5 forethought and truthfulness, asking me to consider what I thought would be best for Charley's6 future disposal. I have written him by this same post, a letter in reply which I fear you will have the trouble of explaining to him, and which I therefore will not repeat here. But I think and hope you will agree with me that my reasons, therein briefly stated, for proposing to leave Charley at Leipzig only another six months, are sound and judicious.7
I have looked over the memoranda of our accounts etc. which you had the kindness to forward to me while I was in Italy.8 Nothing can be clearer. If you will have the kindness to continue to make the needful payments to Dr Müller and to charge them against me,9 you will increase the very great obligation I already owe you, and which no arithmetical figures can ever express.
It was a matter of real regret to me that I was abroad when you were in London. For it would have given me true pleasure to have taken your hand and thanked you with all heartiness for your friendship. I hope to do so on the occasion of your next visit, and also that it will not be long before you return here.
Mrs Dickens10 and her sister11 unite with me in best regards to yourself and family. I am always my Dear Sir
Yours faithfully and obliged
CHARLES DICKENS
The Chevalier Bernhard Taüchnitz
- 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 1841 with Bulwer Lytton’s Pelham. Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, and American Notes had appeared before the end of 1842, and Nicholas Nickleby in June 1843. He and CD became friendly, and CD sent Charley to Leipzig to learn German. 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. Böhnke published his transcription (featuring some errors) of this letter, together with brief annotation, in “The Correspondence between Charles Dickens and Bernhard Tauchnitz: General Observations and Newly Discovered Letters”, Archiv fur das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen (Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 2013), pp. 328-9.
- 3. Charles Culliford Boz Dickens ("Charley", 1837-96), CD's eldest son.
- 4. Professor O. C. Müller, 6 Tauchaer Strasse, Leipzig, a schoolmaster with whom Charley Dickens lived for six months in 1853, in order to learn German. See To Angela Burdett Coutts, 1 Apr 1853, Pilgrim Letters 7, p. 56. See also To Tauchnitz, 2 Apr 1853.
- 5. "his" deleted; "the Doctor's" written above caret.
- 6. "Charley's" written over "his".
- 7. CD wrote to Angela Burdett Coutts on 18 Jan 1854, to say that he and Charley had “had a little talk together” about sending him to Germany as an "inducement to application," so that he could return home "to begin life" (Pilgrim Letters 7, pp. 252-3). On Charley’s progress see Dietmar Böhnke, “The Lost Leipzig Letters: Charles Dickens,Bernhard Tauchnitz and the German Connection”, in Stefan Welz and Elmar Schenkel (eds.), Dickens on the Move: Travels and Transformations, Charles Dickens Bicentenary, Conference 2012, Leipzig, Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, 2014, pp. 162-4. See also Pilgrim Letters 7, 478n: “Tangible results of Charley’s education were three plays edited for English students of German.” In the event, Charley stayed until December 1854, as is clear from CD’s letter to Arthur Ryland of 6 Dec 1854, asking about business openings in Birmingham: “My eldest boy, now 18, comes home from Leipzig tomorrow. He wishes to enter mercantile life, and I am casting about for the best opening for him. He has been educated at Eton, has lived two years in Germany, and his name is my name, and he is an accomplished and creditable fellow” (Pilgrim Letters 7, p. 478).
- 8. CD was travelling in Switzerland and Italy with Wilkie Collins and Augustus Egg, Oct-Dec 1853.
- 9. This would have consisted of amounts due to CD for publishing rights, after subtracting amounts due to Tauchnitz for paying Charley's bills locally for his period of tuition in Germany. CD made a payment of £12 on 9 December 1854, shown in the bank ledger of Coutts & Co. only as "Leipsig". It seems probable that this £12 was the outcome of the Tauchnitz/Dickens account.
- 10. Catherine Dickens, née Hogarth (1815-79).
- 11. Georgina Hogarth (1827-1917).