The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To Isabella Dallas,1 4-5 SEPTEMBER 1869 

Text from facsimile in University Archives online catalogue, August 2017. On the reverse, another hand has written: "Feb 11th 1871 | I regret now my habit of tearing off the half sheet of all letters not to be destroyed".

GAD’S HILL PLACE

HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT. 

Saturday Fourth September 1869 

My Dear Mrs Dallas

In writing to you last, I assumed the contents of the enclosed letter, to be just what they are. It seems to me intended to leave nothing open on Mr Booth’s2 behalf.

Affy Yours alwys 

CHARLES DICKENS 

Sunday. I have received the enclosed copy of your letter to Mr Pugh,3 since writing the above. I trust you are better in health.4

• 1. Isabella Dallas Glyn (née Gearns) (1823-89; Dictionary of National Biography), actress. Début at Manchester 1847, under her mother's maiden name of Glyn; Sadler's Wells 1848-51. Married twice, the second time (1853) to the critic Eneas Sweetland Dallas (1821-79), to whom CD presented the MS of Our Mutual Friend. Obtained divorce from Dallas 1874.
• 2. Edwin Thomas Booth (1833-93), renowned American actor, especially noted for his Shakespearean roles. Opened Booth’s Theatre in New York City 1869. CD’s communication with Mrs Dallas might have concerned negotiations with Booth over the visit of CD’s friend, actor Charles Fechter (1824-79) to America. Fechter was recalcitrant about accepting the terms offered. See To Fechter, 20 June 1869, and To George Dolby, 1 & 7 Aug 1869, Pilgrim Letters 12, pp. 370, 384, 390-1.
• 3. Unidentified.
• 4. Isabella Dallas was a long-time sufferer from cancer.