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 THOMAS COGGINS,1 17 MAY 1851

Text from MS facsimile, International Autograph Auctions, July 2009. Address (envelope): T. Coggins Esquire | 23 Beresford Street | Walworth | London.

Broadstairs, Kent

Saturday Seventeenth May | 1851.2

Mr. Charles Dickens presents his compliments to Mr. Coggins, and regrets that his engagements do not admit of his accepting the invitation of the vocal class of the Walworth Literary Institution.3

1. Thomas Coggins (born c. 1830), merchant’s clerk, of 23 Kennington Street, Walworth; CD was replying to the address of Richard Allmond, banker’s clerk. Presumably both Coggins and Allmond were members of the vocal class at Walworth Institute (below).
2. Address and date at foot of the letter.
3. The Walworth Literary and Scientific Institute, 21 Manor Place and 22 Carter Street, Keene’s Row, Walworth; founded Mar 45: see Pilgrim Letters 6, p. 88n. CD went to an entertainment there by the comedian J. L. Toole (then still an amateur) (To Mark Lemon, 7 Apr 52; Pilgrim Letters 6, p. 637).