The Charles Dickens Letters Project

Period: 
1861-1870
Theme(s): 
Our Mutual Friend
friends
railway
social engagements
illustrations
American Notes
Pictures from Italy
Great Expectations

To MARCUS STONE,1 21 DECEMBER 1866 

MS Jeremy Parrott. 

GAD’S HILL PLACE

HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT.

Friday Twenty First December 1866 

My Dear Marcus

If you take the London Chatham and Dover Express (for Rochester Bridge) from Victoria Station at 4.20 on Monday, I think you will find Chorley2 – and Layard3 – in the train, coming down here. 

Affecy. Ever 

CD.

  • 1. Marcus Clayton Stone (1840-1921), genre painter and illustrator, son of CD’s friend Frank Stone. Illustrator of Our Mutual Friend and one-volume editions of American Notes, Pictures from Italy, and Great Expectations.
  • 2. Henry Fothergill Chorley (1808-72; Dictionary of National Biography), music critic and miscellaneous writer; on staff of the Athenaeum since 1835. Close friend of CD, and contributor to All the Year Round.
  • 3. Austen Henry Layard (1817-94; Dictionary of National Biography), excavator of Nineveh and radical politician. Liberal MP Aylesbury 1852-7; Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs 1852, 1861-6; Liberal MP for Southwark 1860; knighted 1878.