The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To J. P. HARLEY,1 [?LATE SPRING-EARLY SUMMER 1836]

Extract in Walter T. Spencer catalogue, n.d. Date: “Dear Sir” suggests CD still on formal terms with Harley: surviving letters, from Nov 36, all address him as “My Dear Sir”. CD’s reporting for the Morning Chronicle took him out of town, e.g. to Ipswich, May 36; he was writing The Pickwick Papers from Mar 36 and additional Sketches, while working on The Village Coquettes (finished July). 

 Dear Sir,

Having been very much out of town, I regret to say that I am obliged to shut myself up every morning now (except Sundays) and cannot have the pleasure of seeing any one. 

• 1. John Pritt Harley (1786-1858; Dictionary of National Biography), actor and singer. Stage-manager and leading comedian at the St James’s Theatre from Sep 36. CD added the non-singing part of Martin Stokes to The Village Coquettes for him and dedicated the play to him (Pilgrim Letters 1, p. 167n).