The Charles Dickens Letters Project

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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:

1841-1850

Theme(s):

Household Words

social issues

editing

religion

To JOHN DELANE,1 2 MAY 1850

Text from facsimile in University Archives, Autographs and Historic Manuscripts catalogue, 2003.

Devonshire Terrace

Thursday Morning | Second May, 1850.

My Dear Sir

I cannot receive your very kind note, without writing this line of cordial acknowledgement, and of hearty assurance that I reciprocate all your friendly feelings.

As you ask me about Household Words,2 I will not hesitate to say that I have no doubt an occasional quotation3 would do it good. Slips are always sent with the number, for this purpose.4 It is doing wonderfully well, but there is a great deal of filth to be carted away;5 and such help as you offer is very valuable in the youth of so extensive a design.

You have made the Dean6 (I am afraid he is a reduced one)7 perfectly happy.8

John Delane Esquire.

Believe me

Very faithfully Yours

CHARLES DICKENS

1. John Thadeus Delane (1817-79; Dictionary of National Biography), editor of The Times 1841-77: see Pilgrim Letters 7, p. 145n. This is the first known letter, though CD had met Delane by 1847 according to Forster.
2. The first number of Household Words was published 27 Mar.
3. In May 50, seven extracts from Household Words were printed in The Times: 9 (two), 13, 16, 27, 30 (two) May. On 16 May, an extract from CD’s “The Begging-Letter Writer”, Household Words, 18 May 50, fills a column.
4. The slips of Household Words, printed, like proofs, on one side of separate sheets, allowed extracts to be cut out for the printer, while the number itself was kept on file intact.
5. CD speaks metaphorically of the reforming tasks of Household Words and The Times, but The Times had recently been attacking the inefficiency of the Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers (e.g. 19 Mar, 6 Apr) and two of the extracts from Household Words stressed the filthy state of Smithfield Market (ibid., 9, 13 May).
6. Gilbert Elliot, DD (1800-91); Rector of Holy Trinity, Marylebone (1846-50), during which time he and CD became friends; his appointment as Dean of Bristol was announced in The Times, 1 May; was opposed to the Romanising movement: see Pilgrim Letters 6, p. 538n and XII (Addenda), pp. 627 and 631 (two new letters of 1850 & 1851), which throw light on CD’s earlier relationship with the Dean.
7. It was proposed that all Deans should have a stipend of £1,000 (a reduction in many cases) and that rules about residence and plurality be enforced (Elliot’s predecessor had been Dean while Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge): see The Times, 23 and 30 Apr 50.
8. Perhaps a reference to The Times’s leaders about the Gorham Controversy (see PIlgrim Letters 6, p. 30 and n) and the consequent reaction of High Church elements. Priscilla Sellon (1821-76; Dictionary of National Biography), Superior of the Plymouth Sisters of Mercy, had requested the Lord Chief Justice to stand down from her committee, following judgement in the Gorham case, a demand which The Times (16 Apr) characterised as “an act of disaffection to the English church” and evidence that those so acting were endeavouring to thrust Anglican articles and formularies “into meanings nearly akin to those of the Romish theology”. For CD’s own unhappiness under Elliot’s successor and move to St Marylebone church, see Pilgrim Letters 12 (Addenda), p. 631n.