The Charles Dickens Letters Project

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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].

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Charles Dickens Letters Project, ed. Leon Litvack, Emily Bell, Lydia Craig and Jeremy Parrott (London: Dickens Fellowship), DickensLetters.com.

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Period:

1861-1870

Theme(s):

finances

charity

music

All the Year Round

To EDWARD JOHN FRASER1, 18 JANUARY 1861

Replaces extract in Pilgrim Letters 9, p. 373.

Text from facsimile in Boisgirard-Antonini online catalogue, June 2016.

Address: Edward Fraser Esquire, |26 Craven Street, |Strand

OFFICE OF ALL THE YEAR ROUND

Friday Eighteenth January 1861.

My Dear Sir

I return you the cheque signed.

Also I send you a letter from Mr Santley.2 The letters you mention shall be sent on to you, if they, or any of them, should arrive during my absence. My son will open and forward them.

When I wrote of advertising exactly as at present,3 I meant (and should have explained so) that I limited the advice to the address. As to the subscriptions, I quite agree with you.

My impression is that there is not much more to be got from the Public in the subscription way4 and when the Covent Garden Concert is over, I would have a new and closing kind of advertisement.

My Dear Sir

Always Faithfully Yours

CHARLES DICKENS

E. J. Fraser Esquire

1. Edward John Fraser (1824-73), solicitor, of Dangerfield & Fraser, 26 Craven St, Strand; Hon. Secretary, Hullah Fund Committee. CD was the Chairman of this committee, whose object was to raise funds to assist the composer, teacher of choral singing, and writer on music, John Hullah (1812-84).
2. Charles Santley (1834-1922; Dictionary of National Biography), baritone. Had made his London début as Adam in Haydn's Creation in St Martin's Hall, 1857, under John Hullah; after a highly successful career in both opera and oratorio, knighted 1907.
3. See, for example, the advertisement in The Times, 16 Jan 1861, p. 5, in which Fraser’s address is given for receipt of subscriptions. See also Henry Chorley’s article 'Mr. Hullah’s Classes', All the Year Round 4 (5 Jan 1861): 306-8.
4. The Committee announced on 28 Mar that they would close the London subscription lists on 30 Mar 1861, but that the provincial Committees would still function for the time being. The Fund so far stood at nearly £3,000, to which the Sacred Harmonic Society had contributed 100 guineas; the Royal English Opera concert had raised over £64; and Henry Leslie's concert, £35 (The Times, 28 Mar 1861, p. 3).