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].

Database:

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

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Period:

1841-1850

Theme(s):

social engagements

health

railway

To HENRY LEWIS SMALE,1 3 FEBRUARY 1843

MS University of Rhode Island Special Collections.

Devonshire Terrace | Friday Morning

Third February 1843

My Dear Sir

The months come round so fast, and this is such a short one,2 that I shall not be able to have the pleasure of coming to dine with you until my February work has had its throat cut: which laudable deed I shall perform with all convenient despatch. I was hurried away unexpectedly to Bath, in the beginning of my January leisure,3 and have since been reposing on some rheumatic laurels gathered on the Railway. I hear that while I was away, you saw the children; who were specially impressed by your manners and conversation. I beg to be remembered to all your house. And am

My Dear Sir | Faithfully Yours

CHARLES DICKENS

H. Smale Esquire

1. Henry Lewis Smale (baptised 1790), proctor and notary: see Pilgrim Letters 3, p. 437.
2. CD often complained of the extra pressure of deadlines: see e.g. Pilgrim Letters 1, pp. 405, 510 (“this most fraudulent month of eight and twenty days”).
3. After completing January’s stint on Martin Chuzzlewit (Pilgrim Letters 3, p. 425), CD was in Bath for a “few days” between 21 and 25 Jan; the purpose of his visit not known (Pilgrim Letters 3, pp. 429n, 431).