Charles Dickens: A Life (79 page)

11.
D to F, [?4 Feb. 1842],
P
, III, p. 50.

12.
D to Mitton, 31 Jan. 1842,
P
, III, p. 43.

13.
William Wetmore Story, lawyer, sculptor, essayist and friend of Henry James, to his father Joseph Story, Judge of the US Supreme Court, 3 Feb. 1842,
P
, III, p. 51, fn. 2.

14.
D to F, 17 Feb. 1842,
P
, III, pp. 71, 72; D to Maclise, 27 Feb. 1842,
P
, III, p. 94, fn. 9.

15.
See D to F, 6 Mar. 1842,
P
, III, p. 101.

16.
Poe had praised
The Old Curiosity Shop
for its ‘chaste, vigorous, and glorious imagination’. Dickens later corresponded with Moxon about Poe, and may have spoken to other English publishers, but failed to find any for him. D to Poe, 27 Nov. 1842,
P
, III, pp. 384–5.

17.
D to the Mayor of Boston, J. Chapman, 22 Feb. 1842,
P
, III, p. 76.

18.
D to Mitton, 26 Apr. 1842,
P
, III, p. 212; D to F, 24 to 26 Apr. 1842,
P
, III, pp. 204–5.

19.
Catherine D to Fred Dickens, 4 Apr. 1842,
P
, III, p. 189, fn. 4.

20.
He is chiefly remembered for having fifteen children, the largest number of any President. He was a slave-owner on his tobacco plantation, and went on to support the secession of the Southern states in 1861, the year of his death.

21.
D to David Colden, 10 Mar. 1842,
P
, III, p. 111.

22.
D to Fonblanque, 12 [and ?21] Mar. 1842,
P
, III, p. 119.

23.
D to Sumner, 13 Mar. 1842,
P
, III, p. 127.

24.
D to F, 22 Mar. 1842,
P
, III, p. 135.

25.
D to F, 28 Mar. 1842,
P
, III, p. 172; D to F, 22–3 Mar. 1842,
P
, III, p. 165.

26.
D to F, 26 Apr. 1842,
P
, III, p. 211.

27.
D to Macready, 1 Apr. 1842,
P
, III, pp. 173–6; D to F, 2 Apr. 1842,
P
, III, p. 180.

28.
D to F, 15 Apr. 1842,
P
, III, pp. 193, 194.

29.
Ibid., p. 193.

30.
D to F, 24 Apr. 1842,
P
, III, p. 206.

31.
Ibid., pp. 207–8.

32.
D to F, 26 Apr. 1842,
P
, III, pp. 208–9.

33.
Ibid., pp. 210, 211.

34.
D to J. Chapman, 2 June 1842,
P
, III, p. 249.

35.
D to F, 12 May 1842,
P
, III, p. 236; and Chapter 15 of
American Notes
.

36.
D to F, 26 May 1842,
P
, III, p. 247.

37.
See D to Felton, 31 July 1842,
P
, III, p. 293.

38.
Landseer’s letter to Maclise, 5 July 1842, given
P
, III, p. 264, fn. 3.

39.
D’s printed circular dated 7 July 1842,
P
, III, pp. 256–9, fn. 2, p. 258.

40.
D to Lady Holland, 8 and 11 July 1842,
P
, III, pp. 262–3, 265–6.

41.
D, signing his letter ‘B’ [for Boz?], to ed. of the
Morning Chronicle
,
P
, III, pp. 278–85.

42.
D to Mitton, 21 Sept. 1841,
P
, III, p. 328.

43.
Longfellow to Sumner, 16 Oct. 1842,
P
, III, p. 335, fn. 1.

44.
Macaulay to Napier, 19 Oct. 1842,
P
, III, p. 289, fn. 2.

45.
Figures given by Patten,
Dickens and His Publishers
, p. 131.

46.
See
P
, III, p. 348, fn. 2.

47.
Dana’s journal cited
P
, III, p. 348, fn. 1. Poe in the
Southern Literary Messenger
, 9, 60 (Jan. 1843),
P
, III, p. 348, fn. 2.

48.
On 11 August 1842 the
New York Evening Tattler
published a letter purporting to be from Dickens, addressed to the
Morning Chronicle
and dated 15 July 1842. Dickens was accused of ingratitude towards his hosts and ‘unpardonable insolence’ in criticizing the American people for their devotion to money-making. Appendix B,
P
, III, pp. 625–7.

49.
D to Macready, 3 Jan. 1844,
P
, IV, p. 11.

  
1.
Martin Chuzzlewit
, Chapter 9.

  
2.
Ibid.

  
3.
D to F, 2 Nov. 1843,
P
, III, p. 590.

  
4.
D to F, 28 June 1843,
P
, III, p. 516.

  
5.
D to F, 1 Nov. 1843,
P
, III, p. 587.

  
6.
John Dickens’s letter to Chapman & Hall, 9 July 1843,
P
, III, p. 575, fn. 2.

  
7.
D to Mitton, 28 Sept. 1843,
P
, III, pp. 575–6.

  
8.
D to Esther Nash, 5 Mar. 1861,
P
, IX, pp. 388–90, and see fn. 2 on p. 390.

  
9.
Angela Burdett-Coutts (1814–1906) was the youngest child of Sir Francis Burdett and Sophia Coutts, and inherited a fortune from her mother. She was always Miss Coutts to Dickens, since she did not become a baroness until after his death.

10.
D to Coutts, 16 Sept. 1843,
P
, III, pp. 562–4.

11.
D to F, 24 Sept. 1843,
P
, III, pp. 572–3.

12.
D to F, 2 Nov. 1843,
P
, III, p. 590.

13.
Jeffrey to D, 26 Dec. 1843, given in Philip Collins, (ed.)
Dickens: The Critical Heritage
(London, 1971), p. 148, which also prints Forster’s very favourable review, pp. 184–6 (which said what Dickens himself believed, that it was his best book yet).

14.
D to F, 2 Nov. 1843,
P
, III, pp. 590–91.

15.
John Leech, London born (1817), Charterhouse and medical school at Barts, father bankrupted, became a professional artist and cartoonist for
Punch.
He shared radical views with Dickens, and his drawings of street children, published in 1840 with the satirical title ‘Children of the Mobility’, i.e., mob, or poor, are outstanding, and were admired by Dickens. The boy Ignorance and the girl Want, done for
A Christmas Carol
, are of their kind. Leech became a close friend, walking and holiday companion of Dickens, and he and his wife also shared holidays with the Dickens family.

16.
D to Felton, 2 Jan. 1844,
P
, IV, p. 2.

17.
Engels’s great study of what he observed in Manchester,
The Condition of the Working Class in England
, was published in 1845.

18.
Robert L. Patten,
Charles Dickens and His Publishers
(Oxford, 1978), p. 332.

19.
Jane Carlyle to Jeannie Welsh [n.d. but after 26 Dec. 1843], given in
P
, III, pp. 613–14, fn. 4.

20.
D to Mitton, 4 Jan. 1844,
P
, IV, p. 14.

21.
D to Felton, 2 Jan. 1844,
P
, IV, p. 3.

22.
D to T. J. Thompson, 15 Feb. 1844,
P
, IV, p. 46. T. J. Thompson was the wealthy brother-in-law of Dickens’s solicitor Charles Smithson, partner of Mitton.

23.
D to T. E. Weller, 1 Mar. 1844,
P
, IV, p. 58.

24.
D to Fanny Burnett, 1 Mar. 1844,
P
, IV, p. 56.

25.
D to T. J. Thompson, 28 Feb. 1844,
P
, IV, p. 55.

26.
Christiana did not die young, but bore two famous daughters, both brought up in Genoa, Elizabeth born in 1846, who became a highly successful painter (as Elizabeth Butler), and Alice in 1847, who became the poet, Alice Meynell.

27.
He would return to them again in 1859, for
A Tale of Two Cities
.

  
1.
The headmaster was Dr Joseph King, a friend of Macready, a remarkable teacher who started his boys on Homer and Virgil without rote grammar, and was assisted by his daughter Louisa. The school was at No. 9 Northwick Terrace, a fairly easy walk from Devonshire Terrace.

  
2.
D to D’Orsay, 7 Aug. 1844,
P
, IV, pp. 166–7.

  
3.
Ibid., p. 169.

  
4.
Ibid., p. 170.

  
5.
D to F, 6 Oct. 1844,
P
, IV, p. 199.

  
6.
He was clean-shaven in Nov., as shown in Maclise’s sketch.

  
7.
D to Maclise, 22 July 1844,
P
, IV, p. 162.

  
8.
D to F, [?30 Sept. 1844],
P
, IV, pp. 196–7.

  
9.
F to Napier, 16 Nov. 1844, in the form of an addition to letter as a ‘P.S. Very private’, V & A Forster Collection, f. 686;
Edinburgh Review
, 81 (1845), pp. 181–9.

10.
Forster’s
The Life of Charles Dickens
, II (London, 1873),
Chapter 6
.

11.
D to F, [?21 Oct. 1844],
P
, IV, p. 206.

12.
Dickens told Miss Coutts he had only a very few days in town and was seeing no one, in a letter in which he asked her to help the children of his protégé John Overs, who had died leaving six young ones. He sent greetings to her companion, Miss Meredith, who was about to be married to Dr William Brown, and would be remaining as her close companion, friend and neighbour.

13.
Dickens had known Jerrold slightly since the Shakespeare Club, and had asked him to contribute to
Bentley’s Miscellany
in 1836. He was a friend of Stanfield, with whom he had served at sea as a boy, the son of an actor, apprenticed to a printer, and had educated himself, becoming a successful playwright in the 1830s, when
Black-Eyed Susan
ran for 300 nights. He turned to weekly journalism, ran his own papers and was a contributor to
Punch
from its start in 1841. Dickens admired him greatly, felt comfortable with him, and free to share his radical and anti-establishment ideas with him. Jerrold responded and by the 1840s had joined the inner circle of his friends.

14.
Maclise to Catherine D, 8 Dec. 1844,
P
, IV, p. 234, fn. 6.

15.
D to Catherine D, 2 Dec. 1844,
P
, IV, p. 235. He also wrote to his sister Fanny, 8 Dec. 1844, that he had written ‘a decided Staggerer’, and of the impression it had made on his friends and on the printers, who ‘laughed and cried over it strangely’. He told her, ‘When you come to the end of the 3rd part you had better send upstairs for a clean Pocket Handkerchief.’
P
, IV, p. 860 (in supplement).

16.
D to F, [?13 Dec. 1844],
P
, IV, pp. 238–9.

17.
D to F, 8 Jan. 1845,
P
, IV, pp. 246–7.

18.
Granet is not an English-sounding name, but information about Augusta De La Rue is lacking.

19.
Dickens gave this account to Sheridan Le Fanu, prolific writer of ghost and horror stories, 24 Nov. 1869,
P
, XII, p. 443. Le Fanu’s
The Rose and the Key
appeared as a serial in
AYR
six months after the death of Dickens, in Jan. 1871.

20.
Trinità dei Monti is the famous church at the top of the Spanish Steps in Rome. It has many side chapels with religious paintings and frescoes.

21.
D to De La Rue, 27 Jan. 1845,
P
, IV, pp. 254–5.

22.
D to De La Rue, 10 Feb. 1845,
P
, IV, p. 264.

23.
D to De La Rue, 25 Feb. 1845,
P
, IV, p. 274.

24.
Ibid.

25.
D reminded Mme De La Rue of this in a letter of 17 Apr. 1846,
P
, IV, p. 535.

26.
D to Lord Robertson, whom he had met in Edinburgh, 28 Apr. 1845,
P
, IV, p. 301.

27.
He revealed this in a review of a book about ghosts by Catherine Crowe,
The Night Side of Nature
, in the
Examiner
, 26 Feb. 1848, reprinted in Michael Slater (ed.),
The Dent Uniform Edition of Dickens’s Journalism
, II (London, 1996), in which he speaks of a ‘patient’, and he drew De La Rue’s attention to the review in a letter,
P
, V, p. 255.

28.
D to Catherine D, 5 Dec. 1853,
P
, VII, p. 224.

29.
D to Mitton, 14 Apr. 1845,
P
, IV, pp. 297–8, and 20 May 1845,
P
, IV, p. 312.

30.
Dickens mentions the glass she gave him in a letter to her 27 Sept. 1845, saying he drank ‘a bottle of old Sherry from it, in my dressing room’ during an evening’s performance,
P
, IV, p. 390. On 23 Dec. 1845 De La Rue noted that she felt the effect from eleven to half past, ‘a most uncomfortable day I don’t know whether D. mesmerized her on that day in London’ – nor do we know.
P
, IV, p. 320, fn. 4.