The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To BENJAMIN HOTINE,1  24 APRIL 1863 

MS Charles Dickens Museum.

Address: Mr Hotine | 19 Lime Street | E.C. 

GAD'S HILL PLACE

HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT.

Friday Twenty Fourth April, 1863. 

Mr Charles Dickens begs to assure Mr Hotine that he did not consider Mr Hotine's letter in the least intrusive or unreasonable;2 and that he immediately answered it with his own hand3 because he wished the writer to understand that it was as4 received in as good a spirit as that in which it was written.

• 1. Benjamin Hotine (1818-77), fishmonger, with premises at 19 Lime Street, London. For a full account of the correspondence between CD and Hotine see Leon Litvack, "Dickens, Celebrity, and the 'Para-Social Relationship'", Dickensian 116.2 (2020): 146-61.
• 2. CD had entered into correspondence with Hotine after the latter's request to inspect the reading venue, Hanover Square Concert Rooms, to satisfy himself that CD could be heard and seen from every seat in the hall.
• 3. See To Benjamin Hotine, 22 Apr 1863.
• 4. Thus in MS.