The Charles Dickens Letters Project
To BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ,1 8 OCTOBER 1855
Text from facsimile in the possession of Dietmar Böhnke.2
Replaces extracts (aa) in Pilgrim Letters 7, p. 718.
Folkestone, Kent. | Monday Eighth October 1855
My Dear Sir
aMany thanks for your letter, which was perfectly plain, and written in far more scholarly English than your modesty can imagine.a
I received your bill safely, for the balance of the half year's payment to Household Words.3
You shall be supplied with the first Number of my new book4 in due time, and I will take care that the notice of the reservation of the translation right, appears on the cover.5
aIt is a pleasure to me to renew our former terms and to have any dealings with one whom I so highly esteem.a
My family beg to be kindly remembered. Charley6 particularly wishes that I should present his regards to you. He is now in the House of Baring and Co. the great merchants, and is doing very well indeed.7
My Dear Sir | always 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 41 with Bulwer Lytton’s Pelham. Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, and American Notes had appeared before the end of 1842, and Nicholas Nickleby in June 43. He and CD became friendly, and CD sent Charley to Leipzig to learn German (see below). 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 (featuring some errors) of this letter, together 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. 322-3.
- 3. CD’s banking records with Coutts & Co. show a receipt of £23.16s.1d on 6 October 1855, listed as "By letter" (that is, any cheque, cash or other financial instrument deposited by post rather than brought to the bank in person).
- 4. Little Dorrit was published as published as vols. 350, 360, 380 and 390 of the Tauchnitz "Collection of British Authors", 1856-7. Tauchnitz also published the novel in monthly parts, with circulation limited to the European Continent.
- 5. The phrase "The author reserves the right of Translation" appears on the wrapper of the monthly parts of Little Dorrit, published by Bradbury & Evans from Dec 1855 to June 1857.
- 6. Charles Culliford Boz Dickens ("Charley", 1837-96), CD's eldest son, who was sent to Germany 1853-4 to learn the language.
- 7. Charley had begun working for financial house of Baring Brothers, 8 Bishopsgate Street Within; see To W.C. Macready, 4 Oct 1855, in Pilgrim Letters 7, p. 715.