The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To JOSEPH ELLIS,1 5 NOVEMBER 1858 

MS Petrina Stevens.

TAVISTOCK HOUSE

TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON W C

Friday Fifth November 1858 

Dear Mr Ellis

            If you have room for me, I wish to stay at the Bedford from Friday morning the 12th to Sunday morning the 14th2 I want a sitting-room, and two bedrooms; one for myself, and one for my friend Mr Arthur Smith,3 who manages the business of my readings. We shall be obliged to dine, on Friday, as early as 4 o'Clock.

                                    Faithfully Yours

                                    CHARLES DICKENS

Mr Joseph Ellis

• 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. Thus in MS (no full stop). CD gave three readings in the Town Hall, Brighton: the Carol on Friday evening, 12 Nov; Little Dombey at 3 p.m., Saturday; and on Saturday evening, 13 Nov, The Poor Traveller, Boots at the Holly Tree Inn and Mrs Gamp. The Brighton Examiner, 17 Nov 1858, reported that his reception was "warm and friendly"; but the impulse to hear him perhaps "a little heightened by the notoriety of his transpiring domestic relations". It criticised his reading of Little Dombey: "The great novelist is, we think not a great elocutionist . . . his voice, distinct and audible enough, is not of the kind that makes its way directly to the heart."
• 3. Arthur Smith (1825-61), manager for his brother Albert’s Egyptian Hall entertainments (1852-60); for CD’s Amateur Theatrical tour in aid of Douglas Jerrold’s family; and for CD’s Public Readings, 1856-61. Wilkie Collins joined the party on Saturday 13 Nov; see Pilgrim Letters 8, p. 703.