The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To MARK LEMON, 23 JUNE 1852

Extract in Bonham’s catalogue, 23 March 2004; MS 1 p.; addressed Mark Lemon; dated Tavistock House, 23 June 1852.

My Dear Mark

...Thursday the 1st. of July, is the memorable day for the water party with the Etonians.1 Beard2 is laid on. Keep yourself disengaged to all the world, but 

Yours Ever

CD

• 1. A party, as in 1851, on the Thames with Charley Dickens (CD's eldest child) and some of his friends at Eton College: see further Pilgrim Letters 6, p. 697 & nn.
• 2. Thomas Beard (1807-91), journalist; knew CD from the early 1830s and they worked together on the Morning Chronicle from 1834. Best man at CD’s wedding and godfather to Charley: see further Pilgrim Letters 1, p. 3n. Beard had been on the previous year’s jaunt.