The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To FLORENCE ROSS CHURCH,1 17 MAY 1870

MS Free Library of Philadelphia. Address: Mrs. Florence Marryat Church | 58 York Terrace | Regents Park | N.W.

GAD’S HILL PLACE, | HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT.

Tuesday Seventeenth May 1870

My Dear Mrs. Church

I have been much inconvenienced and pained this last week by a neuralgic attack in the foot to which I am sometimes liable, and which originally came of over walking in deep snow.2 The moment I can stand after such a seizure (which in the present case is this moment of writing), I have recourse to change of air. But I shall be back here on Sunday, and happy to receive a call from you on that day between 2 and 3, if that should suit your convenience.

Faithfully Yours always

CHARLES DICKENS

• 1. née Florence Marryat (1838-99; Dictionary of National Biography), daughter of Capt. Frederick Marryat (1792-1848; Dictionary of National Biography); married Thomas Ross Church, June 54; prolific novelist, playwright, actress and singer: see Pilgrim Letters 7, p. 67 and later vols.
• 2. In Feb 65; see Pilgrim Letters 11, pp. 18-19, and also, To Mrs Ross Church, 6 Aug 67, for a similar attack.