The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To MISS CAMILLA TOULMIN,1 [LATE JANUARY 1839]

MS Phillip Pirages. Address (envelope): Miss Toulmin, 5 New Ormond Street. Date: news of the death of Mrs Maclean (“L.E.L.”; see below) was published in the London Courier, 1 Jan 39; Camilla Toulmin’s lines appeared in Bentley’s Miscellany, Feb 39.

Doughty Street | Friday afternoon2

Mr. Dickens presents his compliments to Miss Toulmin and begs to assure her that she shall see his proof of the lines on Mrs. Maclean’s death,3 directly it reaches his hands. Mr. Dickens may take this opportunity of saying that its return at Miss Toulmin’s earliest convenience will greatly oblige him.4

• 1. Camilla Dufour Toulmin (1812-95; Dictionary of National Biography), later Mrs Newton Crosland. Prolific novelist and contributor to periodicals from 1838.
• 2. Address and date at foot of letter.
• 3. Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802-38; Dictionary of National Biography); poetess as “L.E.L.” Briefly engaged to John Forster, 1835. Married George Maclean, Governor of Cape Coast Colony, 1838; went with him to the Cape Coast, where she died mysteriously, Oct 38. Her Life and Literary Remains, 2 vols, 1841, by Laman Blanchard.
• 4. Toulmin’s poem, “On the Death of Mrs. Maclean, (L.E.L.)”, was published in the Miscellany, Feb 39, V, 144.