The Charles Dickens Letters Project

 To GEORGE JERDAN,1 28 JUNE 1841

 Text from digitized facsimile on eBay, December 2004.

 Royal Hotel Edinburgh.2

Twenty Eighth June 1841.

My Dear Sir.

I am heartily obliged to you for your kind Invitation, forwarded to me through your brother William,3  and write to thank you for it – though I very much regret to add that the arrangements4 I have made and the short time I can spare from London, prevent my seeing5 you, as I should have desired.

George Jerdan Esquire

Faithfully Yours

 CHARLES DICKENS

• 1. George Jerdan (1786-1849), of Kelso, younger brother of William Jerdan (see below), through whom George sent CD his invitation; writer and attorney: see also To George Jerdan, 26 June 1841.
• 2. CD was in Edinburgh, 22 June-4 July, where he was given a dinner in his honour, 25 June, and voted the Freedom of the City, 29 June: see further Pilgrim Letters 2, pp. 310-11, 313-15 & nn.
• 3. William Jerdan (1782-1869; Dictionary of National Biography); editor in London of the Literary Gazette, 1817-50. An early contributor to Bentley’s Miscellany; met CD apparently through Ainsworth: see further Pilgrim Letters 1, p. 207n.
• 4. CD was heavily engaged in Edinburgh until Sunday 4 July, when he left by previous arrangement for a fortnight in the Highlands. He also wrote Master Humphrey’s Clock, Nos 69 and 70 (Barnaby Rudge, chs 45-48), while in Scotland.
• 5. Written after “meeting” deleted.