The Charles Dickens Letters Project

Period: 
1851-1860
Theme(s): 
family
legal matters

To FREDERIC OUVRY,1 23 MAY 1858

MS Fraser’s Autographs.

Tavistock House | Sunday Twenty Third May, 1858

My Dear Ouvry.

I have considered and re-considered the points we talked of yesterday, and have gone over them again with Forster. We must positively come off for a payment of Six Hundred a year, including everything.2 This will keep her Brougham quite as well as she has ever had it kept, and will do all she wants, I am sure. The heads [of]3 for that draft of my will, I will send you tomorrow.

Frederic Ouvry Esquire

Faithfully Yours alwys4

 CHARLES DICKENS

  • 1. Frederic Ouvry (1814-81), CD’s solicitor from 1856; partner, with his brothers-in-law, in Farrer, Ouvry (see further Pilgrim Letters  7, p. 273, n.1).
  • 2. The points concerned the terms of separation from Catherine. On 22 May, Forster reported to Ouvry that Catherine wanted £400 a year and a brougham (Pilgrim Letters 8, p. 739). See also To Mrs Charles Dickens, 4 June 58 (Pilgrim Letters , and Lillian Nayder, The Other Dickens: A Life of Catherine Hogarth, (Ithaca & London, 2011), ch. 7 & p. 254.
  • 3. Word deleted.
  • 4. CD omitted the second “a”.