The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To HORACE MAYHEW,1 25 SEPTEMBER 1860

Text from facsimile in Swann Galleries catalogue, Sep 2008.

OFFICE OF ALL THE YEAR ROUND,

Tuesday Twenty Fifth September 1860.

My Dear Horace Mayhew.

Immediately on receipt of your letter, I bestirred myself to get the required documents.2 Both are enclosed herein.3 You will observe in the extract from the Chatham Register, that poor Alfred having been born before the General Registration days, was not elaborately ticketed and labelled as the [ ]4 infants of this generation.

Faithfully Yours

CHARLES DICKENS5

• 1. Horace Mayhew (1816-72; Dictionary of National Biography), journalist and miscellaneous writer; younger brother of Henry Mayhew, author of London Labour and the London Poor, 1864: see Pilgrim Letters 9, p. 299 n.2.
• 2. Toward settling Alfred Dickens’s affairs; Alfred had died, 27 July, in Manchester. It is not clear why Mayhew was involved.
• 3. Presumably the death certificate and some evidence of birth or baptism (not until the Act of 1836 was full registration of births, deaths and marriages required by law). Alfred was born 11 Mar 22 and baptized 3 Apr 22.
• 4. Incomplete word deleted; possibly “young” or “youth” intended.
• 5. Bottom of the letter cut away slant-wise, removing Mayhew’s name.