The Charles Dickens Letters Project

Advanced Search

Theme

Correspondent

How to cite:

Individual letter:

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].

Database:

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

Find us on social media:

Period:

1851-1860

Theme(s):

publishing

David Copperfield

Pickwick Papers

Germany

To H.M. CUSTOMS & EXCISE, 8 APRIL 1857

Text from facsimile in Skinner Auction House catalogue, 2005.

Tavistock House London | Eighth April, 1857.

I beg to state that I give my free consent, on the solicitation of Mr. King of St. Michael’s Hill, Bristol,1 to the admission into this country of one copy of a Leipzig reprint of David Copperfield, and one copy of a Leipzig reprint of Pickwick2 (I being the author of both books) brought over by a German3 passenger4 from Manilla5 in the Hamburg ship Martaban.6

CHARLES DICKENS

1. Frederick A. King, Accountant and Agent for the Medical, Legal and General and the New Equitable Life Assurance Societies, 16 St Michael’s Hill.
2. The Tauchnitz “Collection of British Authors”in English, was published in Leipzig for continental circulation only, and prohibited from import into England or any British colony. Tauchnitz had published The Pickwick Papers in 1841 and David Copperfield in 1849-50.
3. Written above caret.
4. Unidentified.
5. Written above caret after “Germany” deleted.
6. The Hamburg-registered, British-built brigantine Martaban sailed regularly between Auckland and Liverpool; it left Singapore, bound for England, 28 Feb 57.