The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To EBENEZER HEWLETT,1 14 NOVEMBER 1865 

MS Calderstones School, Liverpool. 

GAD'S HILL PLACE

HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT. 

Tuesday Fourteenth November 1865 

Dear Sir

            I regret to assure you in reply to your letter, that I cannot comply with the request2 preferred in it. I stand already pledged to as many demands on my time and attention as can be reasonably recognized3

                                    Faithfully Yours

                                    CHARLES DICKENS

The Rev: E. Hewlett.

• 1. The Rev. Ebenezer Hewlett (1829-1921), Ordained in 1852, as Curate of the Church of St John the Apostle, Bethnal Green; appointed Curate of Calne and Chaplain of Calne Union Workhouse in 1856; nominated to the Curacy of St James's Church at Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, in 1857; by 1865, Rector of St Paul’s, Chorlton- on-Medlock, Manchester. Published a book of sermons (London: Simplin, Marshall & Co., 1856).
• 2. Unidentified.
• 3. CD had just published the second volume of Our Mutual Friend, and was preparing the Christmas number of All the Year Round, to which he contributed the ghost story "To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt".