The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To JOSEPH ELLIS,1 24 DECEMBER 1860 

MS Petrina Stevens 

GAD'S HILL PLACE

HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT

Monday Twenty Fourth December, 1860. 

My Dear Mr Ellis

            Accept my cordial thanks for the noble and wonderful Paté.2 It came on here from London without any delay, and its condition could not be surpassed.

            I am glad – apart from such a present – to have this seasonable opportunity of sending best wishes to you and yours, and of assuring you that I always have a genuine and unfading interest in your success and prosperity.

                                    Always Faithfully Yours

                                    CHARLES DICKENS

Joseph Ellis Esquire

• 1. Joseph Ellis (1815-91) proprietor of the Bedford Hotel, Brighton, 1845-65; son of Joseph Ellis (1783-1858), CD's wine merchant and proprietor of the Star and Garter Hotel, Richmond (where CD frequently dined). For CD's relations with the Ellis family see N.C. Peyrouton, "When the Wine Merchant Wrote to Dickens: The Dickens-Ellis Correspondence", Dickensian 57 (1961): 105-11.
• 2. For other dispatches of pâté by Joseph Ellis to CD see Pilgrim Letters 5, pp. 261, 467; 10, p. 329.