The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To WILLIAM COX BENNETT,1 6 NOVEMBER 1850

Replaces extract in Pilgrim Letters 6, p. 205.
Text from facsimile in Books & Bidders online catalogue, Nov 2020.
Address (envelope only; MS Philip Cornwell): W. C. Bennett Esquire | 11 Croom's Hill Grove | Greenwich. PM 6 Nov 1850. 

Devonshire Terrace
Sixth November 1850. 

My Dear Sir

            I hasten to acknowledge the receipt of your book,2 and the very gratifying terms in which you have the kindness to present it to me. I assure you that I feel them strongly, and that you can have no more interested or approving reader than I have been for a long time.

                                                Very faithfully Yours

                                                            CHARLES DICKENS

• 1. William Cox Bennett (1814-97), poet and miscellaneous writer. Secretary of the Greenwich Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge; an active supporter of popular education. Had published My Sonnets (Greenwich: Henry S. Richardson, 1843), and Songs and Ballads (Greenwich: H. Richardson, 1845). At the time of his death CD had two presentation copies of Bennett's works in his library; see J.H. Stonehouse (ed), Catalogue of the Library of Charles Dickens from Gadshill (London: Piccadilly Fountain Press, 1935), p. 12.
• 2. Bennett's Poems, reprinting two of his contributions to Household Words, had been published by Chapman & Hall 1 Nov 1850.