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):

Urania Cottage

legal matters

Bleak House

To William J. BRODERIP,1 18 MAY 1852

Extract inWalter T. Spencer catalogue No. 69 (1895); MS 2 pp.; addressed W. J. Broderip; dated 18 May 52.

I write briefly,2 being surrounded at this moment (in the spirit) with no end of brickmakers’ babies and forms of phantoms all calling out of the gloom, ‘Take me next,’ ‘Look at me,’ ‘It’s my [turn],’3...

1. William John Broderip, FRS (1789-1859; Dictionary of National Biography), lawyer and naturalist; magistrate at Westminster Police Court: see Pilgrim Letters 7, p. 136n.
2. Clearly about a case for Urania Cottage, the home for homeless women established by CD. CD had urged Broderip to recommend cases (26 July 50, Pilgrim Letters 6, p. 136) and presumably refers to Sarah Youngman's admission (To Broderip, 25 May 52, Pilgrim Letters 6, p. 683).
3. Source reads “time”. CD was at work on Bleak House, No. 4 (chs 11-13); he refers to ch. 8, the brickmaker’s house and the death of Jenny’s child. The plan for No. 4 shows he thought of developing this line, then rejected it for the present: “The Brickmaker’s Family? No”.