The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH,1 [JANUARY 1837-31 MARCH 1837]2

Text from facsimile in Jarndyce Catalogue, CXCV, Winter 2011-2012.

Furnivals Inn | Thursday Morning

My Dear Ainsworth.

Are you not going to “Shed a lustre”3 &c. &c. on the Miscellany this month? I have been looking anxiously forward to receiving your paper, and not seeing it, venture on this slight re-fresher.

William Harrison Ainsworth Esq.

Believe Me | Faithfully Yours

 CHARLES DICKENS

• 1. William Harrison Ainsworth (1805-82; Dictionary of National Biography), historical novelist; son of a Manchester solicitor. He and CD met about 1834-5 (see further Pilgrim Letters 1, p. 115, n.2). A frequent contributor to Bentley’s Miscellany, he succeeded CD as editor, Feb 1839.
• 2. Date between CD becoming editor of Bentley’s Miscellany, Jan 1837, and his move to Doughty Street, late March 1837.
• 3. Jokingly echoing “Can shed no lustre o’er us”, from “Our First Young Love” by Thomas Moore (1779-1852), Dick Swiveller’s favourite poet.