The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To HENRY MORLEY,1 22 AUGUST 1868

Text from facsimile in Peter Harrington online catalogue, March 2021.

Office, Saturday Twenty Second August
1868

My Dear Morley

    An officer of one of the Cunard Steamers — named Boyd2 — writes me (in a highly illegible hand) that he has sent a "small story" to All the Year Round. He does not give its title, so I suppose he has added his name to his MS. I have not the least reason to suppose that it will suit us, but I shall be glad to send him a line under my own hand3 if you can find this needle in our haystack4 by next Thursday

            Faithfully Yours alwys

            CHARLES DICKENS

• 1. Henry Morley (1822-94; Dictionary of National Biography), apothecary, journalist, and literary scholar. Intended for the medical profession, and studied medicine, as well as arts subjects, at King's College, London, 1838-43, acting as one of the editors of the College magazine for two years. LSA 1843, and in practice 1844-8; after losing his apothecary practice through his partner's dishonesty he conducted schools in Manchester and Liverpool until he moved to London in June 1851. Published his first book of verse, Sunrise in Italy, 1848, and began writing on sanitation for the Journal of Public Health in 1849; when the journal ceased publication John Forster agreed to publish a new series of "How to Make Home Unhealthy" in the Examiner, which had already reprinted the first two articles. Morley met Forster – whom he already admired as a "first-rate man, generous and high-minded" – when he visited London in July 1850, and Forster then engaged him as a paid leader-writer on the Examiner. He was on the staff of CD's journals Household Words (1851-9) and All the Year Round (1859-65), and contributed many articles to both publications. W.H. Wills (CD's sub-editor on All the Year Round) suffered a hunting accident in March 1868; his editorial work on the journal was taken up by other members of the journal's staff, including Morley. On CD's concern for Wills's health in this period see Pilgrim Letters 12, p. 166. In Nov 1868 CD's eldest son Charley replaced Morley on the staff of All the Year Round; see Pilgrim Letters 12, p. 189. Morley served as Professor of English Literature at University College London 1865-89.
• 2. Unidentified. Dickens became friendly with Cunard Line officers, owing to his travels to and from the United States in 1867-8; see Pilgrim Letters 11, pp. 447, 490 508, 518, and Pilgrim Letters 12, p. 83. He travelled outward on the Cunard mail steamer Cuba in Nov 1867, and returned on the Cunard steamer Russia in Apr 1868.
• 3. Untraced.
• 4. CD is jocosely referring to the immense volume of letters received at the office of All the Year Round.