The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To FREDERIC CHAPMAN,1 7 DECEMBER 1864

Text from facsimile in Sotheby’s online catalogue, June 2018.

OFFICE OF ALL THE YEAR ROUND
Wednesday Seventh December 1864

My Dear Sir

    Will you send me a copy of the wording of my last receipt? I don’t remember how I worded it, and it will be more exact to have this one in just the same form.2

        Faithfully Yours
        CHARLES DICKENS

Fredk. Chapman Esquire

• 1. Frederic (or Frederick) Chapman (1823-95), publisher of CD’s works. He became a partner of Chapman and Hall in 1847, and took over the firm when his cousin Edward Chapman (1804-80) retired in 1864. From 1865 he also published the Fortnightly Review.
• 2. CD received a payment of £1000 from the publishers on 7 December, as part of the contract for Our Mutual Friend, signed on 21 November 1863. Chapman and Hall acquired the rights to half the profits on the novel for £6,000, of which £2,500 was due on publication of the first part, £2,500 on publication of the sixth part, and £1,000 on publication of the twentieth and final part. For the heads of CD’s agreement with Chapman and Hall see Pilgrim Letters 10, p. 475; dated 30 Sept 1863. The ledger at Coutts’s bank shows that the first tranche was received on 4 May 1864. The second tranche was split into two part-payments: £1,500 was received on 14 October and £1,000 on 7 December (MS Messrs Coutts).