The Charles Dickens Letters Project
To BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ,1 8 APRIL 1856
Text from facsimile in the possession of Dietmar Böhnke.2
Replaces extract aa in Pilgrim Letters 8, p. 85 and extract bb in Pilgrim Letters 8, p. 93.3
49 Champs Elysées, Paris I Tuesday Eighth April, 1856
My Dear Sir
I beg to acknowledge the safe receipt of your draft at 30 days after sight4 on Messrs Johnston and Co. of London,5 for £50 sterling, being the half-yearly payment due to Household Words.6
I also duly notice your announcement that you desire to terminate the existing agreement at the expiration of a year from this time7
aHaving thus disposed of business, let me have the pleasure of adding that we all unite in kindest regards to Mrs Tauchnitz8and your family, and that we shall all remember our meeting here with great pleasure, and shall always look forward to a renewal of that friendship –– somewhere.abLeipzig is at present among my castles in the air, mes châteaux en Espagne,9 but perhaps Germany and I may make a personal acquaintance yet.b10
My Dear Sir
Very faithfully Yours
CHARLES DlCKENS
The Chevalier Bernhard Tauchnitz
- 1. Baron Bernhard Christian Tauchnitz (1816-95), publisher, of Leipzig. Born at Schleinitz; nephew of the publisher Karl Tauchnitz. Founded his own firm in Leipzig in 1837. The firm began its “Collection of British Authors” Sep 1841 with Bulwer Lytton’s Pelham. Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, and American Notes had appeared before the end of 1842, and Nicholas Nickleby in June 1843. He and CD became friendly, and CD sent Charley to Leipzig to learn German. According to John Forster, Tauchnitz always paid liberally. He wrote to Forster after CD’s death: “All Mr Dickens’s works have been published under agreement by me. My intercourse with him lasted nearly twenty-seven years. The first of his letters dates in October 1843, and his last at the close of March, 1870 [see To Tauchnitz, 31 March 1870]. Our long relations were not only never troubled by the least disagreement, but were the occasion of most hearty personal feeling; and I shall never lose the sense of his kind and friendly nature. On my asking him his terms for Edwin Drood, he replied, ‘Your terms shall be mine’” (John Forster, The Life of Charles Dickens, ed. J.W.T. Ley [London: Cecil Palmer, 1928], p. 807n).
- 2. Böhnke published his transcription, with brief annotation, in "The Correspondence between Charles Dickens and Bernhard Tauchnitz: General Observations and Newly Discovered Letters", Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen (Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 2013), pp. 324.
- 3. Extract bb is erroneously dated 18 Apr 1856 in Pilgrim Letters 8, p. 93
- 4. The phrase "30 days after sight " refers to the fact that Tauchnitz's bill could be cashed by CD 30 days after the date stated on the bill, thus allowing time for the necessary funds to be transferred to the account on which the bill is drawn.
- 5. H & I Johnston & Co., bankers at 28 Cannon Street, London.
- 6. See To Bradbury & Evans, 4 April 1856, forwarding “£100 due from M. Tauchnitz to Household Words, to last month. I send it in a bill of M. Tauchnitz’s for £50, and in a cheque of my own for £50” (Pilgrim Letters 8, pp. 80-81 and n). This is one of the few instances where a £50 payment by Tauchnitz, intended for the Household Words account with Coutts & Co., ended up in CD's personal bank account. CD remitted the £50 to Household Words on 7 April 1856. For other instances of £50 payments ending up in CD's personal account see To Tauchnitz, 31 March 1852, and 7 Oct 1856.
- 7. Tauchnitz issued Household Words in 36 volumes in the "Collection of British Authors" series, from 1851 to 1856. He reprinted the entire contents of the first 12 volumes of CD's journal, and part of the 13th. The series was probably discontinued because not all the material from CD's journal was well suited to the German market – especially not the pieces on contemporary British political and social issues. Tauchnitz continued to print extracts from Household Words (mainly the works of fiction) until 1859. See To Tauchnitz, 7 Oct 1856. See also Anne Lohrli, Household Words: Table of Contents, List of Contributors and Their Contributions (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973), p. 48.
- 8. Henriette von Tauchnitz, née Morgenstern (1817-96).
- 9. A French expression meaning to daydream, or to have flights of fancy, originating in Guillaume de Lorris's Roman de la Rose (c. 1235). See also Chaucer's Romaunt of the Rose, lines 2573-4: "Thou shalt make castels than in Spayne, | And dreme of Ioye, al but in vayne".
- 10. CD passed through what is now Germany twice in 1845 and 1846, but never visited Leipzig.