The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To T. HOLMES,1 18 DECEMBER 1861

Text from facsimile in Jarndyce Dickens catalogue, CLXV.

All The Year Round Office

Wednesday Eighteenth December / 1861.

My Dear Holmes.

I just missed you here.

To day I am obliged to go out of town,2 and I am not likely to be back here before 10 at night. But tomorrow from 10 until 1⁄2 past 1 I am sure to be here. I hope there may be nothing amiss that would have disturbed the peace of poor dear Arthur.3 

T. Holmes Esquire

Faithfully Yours

 CHARLES DICKENS

• 1. Perhaps Thomas Knox Holmes (1809-93), solicitor, of Holmes & Co., 18 123 Abingdon St: see Pilgrim Letters 9, p. 542n; CD’s form of address suggests he knew him well.
• 2. CD, originally away for a month on a Reading Tour (the remaining engagements postponed after Prince Albert’s death, 14 December), had certainly returned to London by 18 December. Letters of 19 December, when CD was dealing with “a raging sea of correspondence” (To Baylis, 19 Dec), are dated variously from the All the Year Round office and Gad’s Hill.
• 3. Arthur Smith (1825-61; Dictionary of National Biography); acted as business manager to his brother, Albert, for his entertainments, 1852-60; organized CD’s readings 1858 and 1861. Smith, whom CD called “the man who is never to be replaced” (To Tracey, 26 Dec, Pilgrim Letters 9, p. 553), had died 1 October. Possibly Holmes was involved with Smith’s legal affairs.