The Charles Dickens Letters Project

Period: 
1841-1850
Theme(s): 
theatre
Queen Victoria

To LIEUT.-COL THE HON. CHARLES BEAUMONT PHIPPS, 116 JUNE 1848

MS Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg.

1 Devonshire Terrace | York Gate Regents Park

Sixteenth June 1848.

My Dear Sir.

If it would suit Her Majesty’s convenience to command the play for any night between Saturday the 8th. and Thursday the 13th. of July, both inclusive, I believe that would be a very eligible time.2 The Theatre Royal Drury Lane is the House proposed.3 Awaiting the favor of your reply, I am Dear Sir 

The Honorable C. B. Phipps.

Yours faithfully and obliged

 CHARLES DICKENS

  • 1. Lt.-Col. Charles Beaumont Phipps (1801-66; Dictionary of National Biography), brother of Edmund Phipps and Constantine Henry Phipps, Lord Normanby. Equerry to the Queen since Aug 46 and private secretary to Prince Albert since Jan 47. For CD's introduction to him, through his brother, see To Edmund Phipps, 12 June 1848.
  • 2. Fixed, by 30 June, as 10 July: see To Hullah, 30 June (Pilgrim Letters 5, p. 353 & n).
  • 3. At Drury Lane, Macready played Wolsey in Henry VIII (Acts I-III) and Oakley in George Colman’s The Jealous Wife (see Pilgrim Letters 5, p. 358n).