The Charles Dickens Letters Project

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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].

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

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1861-1870

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friends

To JOHN WILSON,1 5 NOVEMBER 1868

Replaces extract in Pilgrim Letters 12, p. 217.
MS Michele A. Goff.

GAD'S HILL PLACE,
HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT.
Thursday Fifth November 1868

Dear Sir

A highly esteemed American friend of mine, Mr Charles E Norton2 — a distinguished and responsible gentleman — wishes to find a furnished house for himself and family in your district.3 I have told him of my satisfactory experience of you on all occasions, and I beg you to treat him as you would myself. You could not have a better client than Mr Norton, and you could not oblige me more than by helping him to what he wants,4 with as little trouble to himself (he being in delicate health just now),5 as possible.

Faithfully Yours

CHARLES DICKENS

Mr Wilson

1. John Wilson (1803-78), house agent, 5 Poole's Terrace, Seven Sisters Rd.
2. Charles Eliot Norton (1827-1908; Dictionary of American Biography), editor, writer and University teacher; son of Andrews Norton, Dexter Professor of Sacred Literature, Harvard (whom CD met in America in 1842). BA Harvard 1846; worked for a Boston import firm 1846-8, at same time establishing night-schools for men and boys in Cambridge, Mass.; 1849-51 travelled in India, Egypt, Italy, France and England. Formed friendship with the Brownings in Florence; met the painter Ary Scheffer in Paris; and Elizabeth Gaskell, John Kenyon and Crabb Robinson in England. Returned to Boston Jan 1851. Established small business in East India trade 1851. Gave it up for literature 1855, first co-editing his father's A Translation of the Gospels (1856). Came to Rome for his health 1855; began an intimate friendship with Ruskin in Switzerland and first met CD in Ary Scheffer's studio in Paris, Nov 1855. He was joint editor of the North American Review, 1864-8 and Professor of Fine Arts, Harvard, 1873-98; published translations of both Dante's Vita Nuova (1867) and the Divina Commedia (3 vols, 1891-2). CD had first met Norton in 1842, saw him several times in Europe in the 1850s, and then again in America while on his reading tour; he entertained Norton and his wife at Gad's Hill in Aug 1868.
3. The Nortons had been staying at Keston rectory, in Bromley, Kent. CD wrote to Norton's wife about engaging Wilson to find them a house in London: "When I take a furnished house in town, I always take it in what Londoners call "Tyburnia"—the Hyde Park district lying at the upper end of Oxford Street. It is beyond question the healthiest part of London, and offers the great advantage for your children that it is close to the best parks and to Kensington Gardens. I have always employed one House Agent there, and have always had cause to be satisfied with him. Enclosed is a letter to him. You may be sure that he will exert himself if you present it, and that he will be honest and zealous. He has houses in that district constantly on his books, and, if you pitch upon one to suit you, will tell you what offer is likely to be accepted" (Pilgrim Letters 12, p. 215; dated 5 Nov 1868).
4. The Nortons took a house, found for them by Wilson, at 18 Queen's Gate Terrace, Kensington; see Pilgrim Letters 12, p. 265.
5. For CD's concern about Norton's health see Pilgrim Letters 12, p. 215.