The Charles Dickens Letters Project

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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.

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Period:

1851-1860

Theme(s):

social engagements

drink

To RICHARD FORD,1 20 APRIL 1855

Facsimile in Christie’s online catalogue, May 2014

TAVISTOCK HOUSE,

Friday Twentieth April, 1855

My Dear Mr. Ford.

Enclosed is formal testimony that I will, with the leave of Heaven, keep my vow. And if in the profoundest secrecy I may connect the name of Baring2 with the word Failure, I waft you this breath of suspicion that he broke down in his rare Spanish Wine when we dined there together so admirably. I look to you with a serene confidence, and hope I shall come to the consideration of those two Vintages in a prepared frame of mind.

Faithfully Yours

CHARLES DICKENS

Richard Ford Esquire.

1. Richard Ford (1796-1858), Spanish traveller. See Pilgrim Letters 7, p. 584.
2. Thomas Baring (1799-1873), banker. Entered the family banking firm, of which he became head; a director of the Bank of England 1848-67; MP 1835-7 and 1844-73.