The Charles Dickens Letters Project

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How to cite:

Individual letter:

Dickens, Charles. To [addressee], [date of letter]. Charles Dickens Letters Project, ed. Leon Litvack, Emily Bell, Lydia Craig and Jeremy Parrott (London: Dickens Fellowship). [URL of individual letter], [date of access].

Database:

Charles Dickens Letters Project, ed. Leon Litvack, Emily Bell, Lydia Craig and Jeremy Parrott (London: Dickens Fellowship), DickensLetters.com.

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Period:

1851-1860

Theme(s):

social engagements

To LORD & LADY GRANVILLE,1 23 APRIL 1854

Text from facsimile in International Autograph Auctions online catalogue, April 2019.

Tavistock House

Twenty Third April, 1854.

Mr Charles Dickens greatly regrets that he is so unfortunate as to be engaged on Saturday the sixth of May, otherwise he would have had much pleasure in accepting the kind invitation with which Lord and Lady Granville have honored him.

1. Granville George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville (1815-91; Dictionary of National Biography), Whig statesman; Minister for Foreign Affairs 1851-2; Maria Louise Kämmerer van Worms-Dalberg (1813–1860), the only child of Emmerich Josef Wolfgang Heribert, Duke of Dalberg, and the widow of Sir Richard Acton (1801-37), seventh baronet, of Shropshire. Granville was President of the Privy Council from 1852-4; in this role he interacted with CD concerning the incorporation of the Guild of Literature and Art. In 1855 he became leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords.