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, 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):

domestic issues

To JOHN THOMPSON,1 14 FEBRUARY 1849

Replaces summary in Pilgrim Letters 5, p. 494.

Extract (aa) and text from facsimile of second page of 2-page letter (bb), in Bubb Kuyper online catalogue, May 2018.

^aAthenaeum Club

Wednesday Fourteenth February 1849

John

Giving him directions for finding the key of his envelope-case in the round table in his study,2 and asking him to make that, and the bunch of keys I send with this to enable you to open the drawer, into a little parcel, and put it into the small pocket of the great coat^a ^bwhich Topping3 is to bring down to me4 when he fetches me with the carriage, this afternoon5

CHARLES DICKENS^b

1. John Thompson (1822-71), CD’s trusted servant, c. 1841-67; he acted as dresser, secretary, and coachman. Stole money from CD's cash box, Nov 1866 (see Pilgrim Letters 11, pp. 262, 268), but not dismissed outright; CD eventually facilitated his finding employment as a tobacconist.
2. On this piece of furniture see Jennifer M. Ide, "A Table in Want of a Provenance: Dickens's Wellington Street Library Table", in Dickensian 115.1 (2019): 21-27.
3. William Topping (1808-69), CD's groom and coachman.
4. at the [illegible]" deleted after "to me".
5. Thus in MS (no full stop).

Also to this addressee

To John Thompson, 18 August 1857	Read this
To John Thompson, 28 June 1857	Read this