The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To MESSRS BRADBURY & EVANS,1 10 AUGUST 1855

Replaces mention in Pilgrim Letters 7, p. 686.

Text (first page only) from facsimile in Bonhams online catalogue, 2011, where the addressee was erroneously given as Francis Carr Beard.

Folkestone, Friday August Tenth 1855

My Dear B and E.

            I find the work of reference in MS so extremely difficult (besides not being sure of my quantity in beginning), that I think there is nothing for it but to get the enclosed2 set up, with all possible precautions. I have cut off the title to prevent its leaking out. Please to let me have a proof when convenient, of course you will do all you can to keep the thing secure.

            When the Halfyear's3 accounts shall4 be ready, please send them to me here,5 instead of at Wellington Street.6

            Wills7 has told you that I am going

• 1. CD's publishers of his journal, Household Words.
• 2. Probably "Wild Court Tamed", published in Household Words 12 (25 Aug 1855): 85-7, concerning the renovation of squalid London tenements; the piece opens with a plethora of figures.
• 3. Thus in MS.
• 4. Two words deleted.
• 5. CD stayed at Folkestone from 16 July to 13 October, working on Little Dorrit.
• 6. The Household Words Office was located at 16 Wellington Street North.
• 7. William Henry Wills (1810-80; Dictionary of National Biography), one of CD’s most trusted friends, and assistant editor of Household Words and All the Year Round.