The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To EDMUND SYDNEY WILLIAMS,1 1 FEBRUARY 1846

Facsimile in the possession of Dietmar Boehnke.2

Devonshire Terrace,

First February 1846

Dear Sir

I am extremely sorry that my Publishers should have given you any cause of offence. I think there must have been some misunderstanding between you.

I have handed your note to them; and have informed them, for the second time, that I am anxious to oblige Mr. Tauchnitz3 in all possible respects, as he behaved in a very honorable manner on the last occasion of my having any communication with him, observing my invariable principle in such matters. I do not wish to interfere beyond this.

I believed the arrangement to have been made long ago, and was surprised last night to hear anything from you to the contrary.

Faithfully Yours

CHARLES DICKENS

Sydney Williams Esquire

• 1. Edmund Sydney Williams (1817-91) of Williams & Norgate, 19 Henrietta St, Covent Garden and 2 Queen's Passage; known to be Bernhard Tauchnitz's London agent by 1850, when CD sent him proofs of David Copperfield.
• 2. This letter was part of a group which came to light in Leipzig, in the Tauchnitz firm’s archive, which was sold in the early 1990s. Before the items were dispersed the original Dickens letters were photocopied by the family of Dietmar Boehnke of the University of Leipzig. These photocopies were kindly shared with the Dickens Letters project.
• 3. 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, p. 807n).