The Charles Dickens Letters Project
To MARION ELY,1 3 FEBRUARY 1869
Extract and facsimile (aa) in Bonham’s catalogue, 23 March 2004; MS 2 pp.; addressed Marion Ely; dated Office of All the Year Round, 3 February 1869.
My Dear Marion
...Mrs. Atwood2 presented herself to me as the Agent of a certain man in New York, who wanted to buy a short story3 of me for a Thousand Pounds. I agreed to write it. When the story was ready, the thousand pounds were not.4 When Mr. Dolby went to America before me,5 I gave him the story, and charged him to see the man. This he did, and the money was produced. But the man claiming a right6 which I had never in the least intended to sell him, Mr. Dolby withheld the story and declined to take the money. I then (disposing of the story elsewhere)7 wrote to the man that he had broken his conditions and I would have nothing to do with him.... Mrs. Atwood’s astraightforward manner testified that the conditions were unquestionably broken by her principal, and that I was right. I had before that time presented her to Victor Hugo;8 and I was so satisfied of her good faith,9 that I did not think it necessary to caution Hugo regarding the person for whom she had negotiated.
Ever Your affectionate
CHARLES DICKENS
Miss Marion Ely.a
- 1. Marion Elizabeth Ely (1820-1913), daughter of Charles Ely and Sara, née Rutt; niece of Rachel Talfourd (1792-1875), wife of CD's friend Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795-1854).
- 2. Mrs Montgomery Atwood, agent for the New York publisher Benjamin Wood (see To Benjamin Wood, [Aug-8 Oct 67]); based in London and Paris.
- 3. “George Silverman’s Explanation”.
- 4. CD agreed with Mrs Atwood (27 Feb 67) and confirmed with Wood (9 Apr 67) that he would write a story for £1,000, the MS to be ready by 1 Aug. CD had stipulated that the fee be deposited with a London bank and exchanged for the sealed MS.
- 5. George Dolby went to America to prepare for CD’s 1867 reading tour. He took CD’s MS, but was not satisfied Wood intended to pay and withheld the story: see further Pilgrim Letters 11, p. 450n.
- 6. The right not identified. In To Wood, 9 Apr 67 CD specifies the fee, delivery of the MS, and that the story was “to become yours on the consideration mentioned in my communication to Mrs. Atwood”: the “consideration”, as To Mrs Atwood, 27 Feb 67, makes clear, was the £1,000 fee.
- 7. To Atlantic Monthly, 3 parts, Jan-Mar 68; reprinted in All the Year Round, 1, 15 and 29 Feb 68, XIX, 180, 228 and 276.
- 8. Victor Marie Hugo (1802-85), poet and novelist. CD first met him in Jan 47 (Pilgrim Letters 5, p. 15 & nn). CD helped to facilitate Mrs Atwood’s affairs with Hugo (Pilgrim Letters 11, p. 388).
- 9. CD fully exonerated Mrs Atwood, assuring her he had “the highest opinion” of her rectitude (8 Oct 67; Pilgrim Letters 11, p. 450).