The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To SAMUEL LAMAN BLANCHARD,1 [?17 JULY 1839]

MS Private. Date: CD was in Petersham on 14 July and had proposed to meet Blanchard on Tuesday 16 July at Covent Garden Theatre (the night of Macready’s final performance as manager there) to discuss the farewell dinner in Macready’s honour on 20 July: see To Blanchard, [11] July 39, Pilgrim Letters 1, pp. 560-1. If another matter was not settled then (hence “both ways”), CD would provide necessary information “next morning”, as he indicates here he has done.

Doughty Street. | Wednesday morning

My Dear Blanchard

Count upon me as the most enthusiastic and ardent supporter of the plot.2 And in proof of my sincerity and earnestness expect me to call upon you today at 2 o’Clock to put myself bodily into your hands.

Laman Blanchard Esquire

Always Faithfully Yours

 CHARLES DICKENS

• 1. Samuel Laman Blanchard (1804-45; Dictionary of National Biography), essayist, verse-writer and journalist. See Pilgrim Letters 1, p. 290n.
• 2. Untraced. Macready makes no mention of Blanchard at the dinner in his honour or of anything like a “plot” there (Diaries, II, 15-19).