The Charles Dickens Letters Project

Period: 
1861-1870
Theme(s): 
David Copperfield
gifts
family
India

To THE REV. T. W. GOLDHAWK,1 2 MARCH 1864

Text from digitised facsimile in Sotheby’s online catalogue, 20 April 2005.  

GAD’S HILL PLACE,

HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT.

Wednesday Second March 1864

Dear Sir 

I hope you may not have thought me unmindful of your pleasant letter, or unwilling to comply with its request. Several circumstances have combined of late, to render me even less available than usual for letter-writing.2 With this, I have the pleasure of sending you a copy of David Copperfield.3 My two daughters (the younger married)4 beg me to convey to you their kind regard. A poor boy whom you christened,5 died in India,6 a grown man, on the last day of this last old year. All my other sons are well and working their various ways.

The Rev. T. W. Goldhawk

Faithfully Yours

 CHARLES DICKENS

  • 1. The Rev. Thomas Woods Goldhawk (?1813-70), curate, St Marylebone, London, 1845-50; Vicar of Sheldwick, Kent, 1850-70.
  • 2. For similar excuses since the beginning of the year, see e.g. To Collins, 25 Jan 64 (Pilgrim Letters 10, p. 346). Besides normal business and social engagements, CD had had to cope with the recent deaths of his mother (September 1863); of Thackeray (December 1863), writing “In Memoriam” for the Cornhill, Feb 64, IX, 129-32; and of Walter Landor Dickens, news of which reached him in early February 1864. He was working on Our Mutual Friend, getting No.1 set up in print by mid February for Marcus Stone to provide titlepage and illustrations (Pilgrim Letters 10, p. 357), while searching for a London house to rent from February to June. He had also been away for a few days in both early January and early February.
  • 3. The source says the two-volume 1859 edition, inscribed “The Rev. T. W. Goldhawk From Charles Dickens, Third March 1864”.
  • 4. Kate had married Charles Collins in 1860.
  • 5. Walter Landor, baptised 8 Feb 1841 at St Marylebone church. CD is mistaken about when he first knew Goldhawk, who does not appear in the Clergy List until 1845. The baptismal record (National Metropolitan Archives) names G.H.Thompson (curate, Holy Trinity, Tottenham, 1830-45) as performing the ceremony. CD presumably knew Goldhawk while living at Devonshire Terrace.
  • 6. See To Barrow, 23 Feb, above.