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, Lydia Craig, Jeremy Parrott, and Scott Caddy (London: Dickens Fellowship). [URL of individual letter], [date of access].

Database:

Charles Dickens Letters Project, ed. Leon Litvack, Lydia Craig, Jeremy Parrott, and Scott Caddy (London: Dickens Fellowship), DickensLetters.com.

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Period:

1841-1850

Theme(s):

clothing

To JOHN KIMBALL,1 25 JANUARY 1842

Text from facsimile in Heritage Auctions online catalogue, Feb 2023.

Tremont House.2
January Twenty Fifth 1842.

Mr Charles Dickens presents his compliments to Mr Kimball, and begs to thank him for his courtesy and polite attention.3

1. John Kimball (1801-1886) of 42 Tremont Row, Boston, shoemaker and entrepreneur. Credited with the invention of the “ABC” system of widths (Shoe and Leather Reporter, 27 March 1886: 516).
2. Boston's leading hotel, opened in 1829 and then regarded as the best hotel in America. CD and his wife Catherine had arrived in the city on 22 Jan, aboard S. S. Britannia.
3. Kimball may have been the inspiration for the “artist in boots” recalled in American Notes, chap. 18, from whom CD ordered new footwear suitable for travel.