The Charles Dickens Letters Project

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Correspondent

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:

1841-1850

Theme(s):

public recognition

To THE LORD PROVOST OF EDINBURGH,1 30 JUNE 1841

MS facsimile on eBay, January 2012.

Royal Hotel | Edinburgh. | June The Thirtieth 1841.

My Lord Provost.

I beg to thank you, and the Magistrates and Council of Edinburgh, for the distinguished honor you have done me – and through me, the pursuit to which I am devoted – in conferring upon me the freedom of this City.2 Believe me, My Lord, that I am deeply sensible of this high token, and that I shall ever regard the title of citizen, so generously and handsomely bestowed, with a pride and pleasure much too deep for words. I have the honor to be, My Lord,

Your faithful and obliged servant

CHARLES DICKENS

The Lord Provost.

1. Sir James Forrest, Bart (1780-1860), advocate; Lord Provost of Edinburgh since 1838. A ruling elder of the established Church of Scotland until 1843, when he joined the Free Church. Grand Master of the Freemasons in Scotland.
2. For CD’s account of this honour and the subsequent dinner, see To Forster, [30 July 1841], Pilgrim Letters 2, pp. 313-15 & nn