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:

1841-1850

Theme(s):

charity

To WILLIAM EWART,1 23 MAY 1841

MS Free Library of Philadelphia.

Devonshire Terrace.

May The Twenty Third 1841.

My Dear Sir.

I am much obliged to you for your note, and for your kind attention. I am not likely to see Mrs Wilby2 whom I have never seen in my life; but when I sent the Petition to her for her signature, I was extremely careful to caution her against expecting that anything would come of its presentation3 – I repeatedly stated the same thing to her daughter when she asked me to draw it – and I fully believe that they perfectly understand the real state of the case.

Believe Me / Faithfully Yours

CHARLES DICKENS

William Ewart Esquire.

&c &c &c

1. William Ewart (1798-1869; Dictionary of National Biography), liberal politician, MP for Wigan: see Pilgrim Letters 2, p. 263n.
2. Maria A. Wilby, author of A Cry from the Opprest and Other Poems, 1838, dedicated, with complaints of calumny, to the Lord Chancellor: see Pilgrim Letters 12 (Addenda), p. 576n.
3. Her husband’s death in 1818 left Mrs Wilby and her children financially distressed. The petition was possibly to the Royal Literary Fund or, since CD met Ewart, 3 May 41 (Pilgrim Letters 2, p. 278), to discuss her situation, a request to Parliament for a pension.