The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To CHARLES DICKENS JNR,1 4 APRIL 1866 

Text from Walter Dexter & J. W. Ley, The Origin of Pickwick, 1936, pp.102-3.

6 SOUTHWICK PLACE, HYDE PARK.2

April 4th, 1866

My Dear Charley,

There has been going on for years an attempt on the part of Seymour’s widow,3 to extort money from me, by representing that he had some inexplicable and ill-used part in the invention of Pickwick!!!4 I have disregarded it until now, except that I took the precaution some years ago, to leave among my few papers5 Edward Chapman’s testimony6 to the gross falsehood and absurdity of the idea. But last week I wrote a letter to the Athenaeum7 about it, in consequence of Seymour’s son reviving the monstrosity.8 I stated in that letter that I had never so much as seen Seymour but once in my life, and that was some eight-and-forty hours before his death. I stated also that two persons still living were present at the short interview.9 Those were your uncle Frederick10 and your mother. I wish you would ask your mother to write to you, for my preservation among the aforesaid few papers, a note giving you her remembrance of that evening – of Frederick’s afterwards knocking at our door before we were up, to tell us that it was in the papers that Seymour had shot himself,11 and of [her]12 perfect knowledge that the poor little man and I looked upon each other for the first and last time that night in Furnival’s Inn.13 It seems a superfluous precaution, but I take it for the sake of our descendants long after.

Yours ever affectionately

C.D.

• 1. Charles Culliford Boz Dickens (1837-96; Dictionary of National Biography), CD's eldest son.
• 2. Rented by CD from 26 Feb.
• 3. Jane Seymour (1801-69), widow of Robert Seymour (?1798-1836; Dictionary of National Biography: see Pilgrim Letters 1, p. 136n), illustrator of the first two Nos of Pickwick. CD had subscribed to a fund for the education of her children in Nov 45, but declined putting on an additional performance of Every Man in his Humour for her benefit (To Challenor, 28 Oct 45; Pilgrim Letters 4, p. 418 & nn).
• 4. Mrs Seymour had written to CD, 1849, claiming a significant role for her husband in the origin of Pickwick: see below and Pilgrim Letters 5, p. 575 & nn. In her privately printed Account of the Origin of the “Pickwick Papers”, c.1854, Mrs Seymour claimed that Seymour “originated” the work; prepared the plates in advance; fixed the title, price and monthly publication; gave Chapman & Hall his “permission” to employ CD; and approved the MS as it was written (Pilgrim Letters 5, p. 575 nn 1,3).
• 5. Business and legal documents, largely reproduced in Pilgrim appendixes; the bulk of the MSS are in the British Library.
• 6. Edward Chapman (1804-80), with William Hall (?1801-47), bookseller and publisher; with Hall, invited CD in Feb 36 to produce a new monthly publication 154 that became Pickwick: see Pilgrim Letters 1, p. 128 & n. Chapman wrote, 7 July 49, after CD received Mrs Seymour’s letter (above), confirming the strict correctness of CD’s account of the origin of Pickwick in the Preface to the Cheap Edition, 1847: see Pilgrim Letters 5, p. 575n. This letter was deposited with Forster when CD went to America, 1867, in case the occasion arose to quote it in detail in CD’s absence (F, I, v, 74n).
• 7. 31 Mar 66, the letter dated 28 Mar: Pilgrim Letters 11, pp. 175-7 & nn.
• 8. In a letter by Robert Seymour, in the Athenæum, 24 Mar. Largely about a copyright issue regarding a reprint of his father’s Sketches, it took occasion to attack CD for “a sneer” at Mrs Seymour’s account of Pickwick in the Account of the Origin and added: “As regards ‘Pickwick’ ... the idea and title of the work was my father’s” (Pilgrim Letters 11, p. 176n).
• 9. CD had invited Chapman and Hall to his lodgings at Furnival’s Inn on Sunday 17 Apr 36: Seymour was to bring an altered version of the illustration for “The Stroller’s Tale” and, CD hoped, to join them socially (Pilgrim Letters 1, p. 146). They may have left before Seymour arrived or CD may possibly have forgotten Chapman was present (Hall died 1847).
• 10. Frederick William Dickens (1820-68; see Pilgrim Letters 1, p. 47n); moved with CD to Furnival’s Inn in 1834 and continued to live there after CD’s marriage.
• 11. About 7 a.m. on Wednesday 20 Apr; in the morning papers therefore (“before we were up”) on Thursday.
• 12. Source gives “his”, but CD is asking Mrs CD, not Frederick, to write the account.
• 13. The whereabouts of Mrs CD’s account, if written, not currently known.