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:

1851-1860

Theme(s):

family

To EDWARD TRIMMER,1 30 May 1853

Text from facsimile in Lot-Art online catalogue, Nov 2021.

Tavistock House

Monday Thirtieth May 1853

My Dear Sir

I find, to my great vexation and distress, that Frank stammers so horribly in his speech2 as to be quite a pitiful spectacle demanding immediate attention. I therefore retain him at home, to endeavour to get him cured.

Faithfully Yours

CHARLES DICKENS

1. The Rev. Edward Trimmer (?1800-57), schoolmaster and coach in military studies, of Richmond Road, Putney; BA Brasenose College, Oxford, 1822. He prepared CD's son Walter (1841-63) for service with the East India Company; see Pilgrim Letters 6, p. 563.
2. CD's son Frank (1844-86) had intentions to study medicine, but gave up this aspiration because of his stammer; instead he went to India in 1863, to serve in the Bengal Mounted Police. On the son's stammer see CD's comments to W.H. Wills, also on 30 May 1853: "Frank (the cleverest of all the children) stammers so horribly as to be quite an afflicted object" (Pilgrim Letters 7, p. 94). Presumably CD had intended Frank to be tutored by Trimmer, but then reconsidered.