The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To HENRY WHITWORTH JONES,1 12 JUNE 1857

MS Private. Address: H Whitworth Esquire | No.16 Adelaide Road North | Finchley Road | St Johns Wood.

Garrick Club | Friday Twelfth June, 1857

My Dear Whitworth.

You will readily understand the enclosed Proof.2 I have no doubt I may rely, on the Frozen Deep occasion,3 on the strongest-looking Seaman that was ever reduced to the confines of starvation.4 Call for one Rehearsal shall be sent in due course.

H. Whitworth Esquire

Ever Yours

CHARLES DICKENS

• 1. Henry Whitworth Jones (1817-91), operatic and concert bass-baritone, under the name Henry Whitworth. Sang in Italy and Brazil, as well as Italy, until his retirement as a professional, 1855; continued as an amateur, often for charitable purposes. Member of the Garrick Club, 1848. Sang at Macready’s benefit, July 48, in the arrangements of which CD had been involved: see Pilgrim Letters 5, pp. 353 & n, 363 & n.
• 2. A proof of the programme for the Fund “In Remembrance of the late Mr. Douglas Jerrold”: see To Collins, 12 June 57, Pilgrim Letters 8, p. 348 & Appx D.
• 3. The Frozen Deep was performed for the Jerrold Fund at the Gallery of Illustration, Regent Street, 11 July; four further performances were subsequently arranged by CD for the Fund.
• 4. Jones presumably played a Mute Seaman, as he had in January; the expedition, on the verge of starvation, is reduced to grinding bones for soup. See To Jones, 2 Jan 1857