The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To FREDERICK DAMER CAPE,1 19 DECEMBER 1866 

Extract in the Era, 9 October 1870, p. 1. 

GAD’S HILL PLACE

HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT. 

Wednesday, 19th December, 1866 

I would rather not know how it is abridged;2 but I beg to assure you that I thoroughly understand and that I highly esteem the honourable spirit of your letter. 

Believe me, my dear Sir, 

Faithfully yours, 

CHARLES DICKENS. 

• 1. Frederick Damer Cape, dramatist and musical entertainer. For further details of Cape’s life see William F. Long, "The Ghosts at the Royal Polytechnic: An Uncollected Letter", Dickensian 112.2 (2016): 145-52.
• 2. Cape’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol. On 25 April 1867, The Times carried an announcement of a "Brief reading by Damer Cape, Esq., from Mr. Charles Dickens’s Christmas Carol, with all its startling Ghost effects", at the Royal Polytechnic Institution ("Royal Polytechnic – Leotard", The Times, 25 April 1867). The performances continued for several weeks (see "'Leotard'; or 'The Automatic'", The Times, 16 May 1867).