The Charles Dickens Letters Project
To FREDERIC OUVRY,1 16 February 1866
MS2 Charles Dickens Museum.
Most of the statements in Mr Bowen May’s letter3 are absolutely false. I never was threatened with legal proceedings by Kings & Co.4 I paid for a brougham I bought of them at the very time the money was due for it.5 I had cause of complaint against them; but never refused to pay them one shilling of repairs which they demanded of me.
I am not the writer of the article of which they complain,6 nor are they (Messrs Kings & Co) referred to in it; nor did the slightest communication with reference to Messrs Kings & Co pass between the writer and me. This plain fact can be proved by both of us; and, under these circumstances, Mr. Dickens positively refuses to gratify the desire of Messrs Kings & Co to get a large gratuitous advertisement through these pages.
- 1. Frederic Ouvry (1814-81), CD's solicitor from 1856. Son of Peter Aimé Ouvry, of the Ordnance Office, descendant of an old French family; nephew of John Payne Collier. Partner in Robinson, King, and Ouvry, 13 Tokenhouse Yard, 1837; partner in Farrer, Ouvry, with his brothers-in-law F. W. and W. J. Farrer, 66 Lincoln's Inn Fields (Miss Coutts's solicitors), 1855-81. Fellow of Society of Antiquaries 1848; Treasurer 1854; President 1876. A well-known book collector.
- 2. This note, in the hand of W.H. Wills, was a statement by CD in response to a letter by James Bowen May, 10 Feb 1866. For details of this altercation see Angus Easson and Margaret Brown, 'A Generous (if Unlucky) Gift: Wills and the Brougham', Dickensian 112.1 (2016): 31-5.
- 3. James Bowen May (1813-99). Solicitor, of Bolton House, 67 Russell Square. He wrote to CD on 10 Feb 1866
- 4. W. Kings & Co., of 100-101 Long Acre, Drury Lane, manufacturer of miniature broughams.
- 5. The brougham was in fact purchased by W.H. Wills.
- 6. Samuel Sidney, 'Carriages and Their Changes', All the Year Round 15 (13 Jan 1866): 11-15.