The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To FREDERIC CHAPMAN,1 2 FEBRUARY 1866

Replaces extract in Pilgrim Letters 11, p. 149.

Text from facsimile in Swann Auction Galleries catalogue, May 2013 

GAD’S HILL PLACE,

HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT.

Friday Second February 1866

My Dear Sir  

I am very sorry to hear that your wife2 is so ill, and also that you have but newly passed through other domestic misfortunes. I hope that your removal of your invalid3 may lead to better results, and of course could not expect to see you at such a time. 

Faithfully Yours 

CHARLES DICKENS

Frederick Chapman Esquire

• 1. Frederic (or Frederick) Chapman (1823-95), publisher. He became a partner of Chapman and Hall in 1847, and took over the firm when his cousin Edward Chapman (1804-80) retired in 1864. From 1865 he also published the Fortnightly Review.
• 2. Clara Chapman, née Woodin, whom Chapman married on 21 November 1861.
• 3. Chapman had taken her to Bournemouth, where she died on 28 February 1866.