The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To THOMAS P. BALL,1 11 JANUARY 1862

MS Peter Trusedale.

Exeter,2 Saturday Eleventh January 1862

Dear Sir

I think your Poem on Prince Albert’s Death,3 a production of very great merit – full of lofty feeling and expression, and quite apart from the common-places of such an occasion. It does you infinite credit, and I congratulate you upon it very cordially.

Dear Sir, Believe me

Faithfully Yours

 CHARLES DICKENS

• 1. Possibly Thomas Prideaux Ball, 22 Onslow Sq., W. Brompton.
• 2. CD read at the Royal Public Rooms, Exeter, on 10 and 11 January.
• 3. Prince Albert had died on 14 Dec 61; CD postponed his readings for that week in Liverpool until 27-29 Jan 62. Ball’s poem has not been traced and was probably unpublished; a poem by Robert Lytton, “A Great Man”, was published in All the Year Round, VI, p. 421 (25 Jan 62).