The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To JAMES PHINEAS DAVIS,1 4 SEPTEMBER 1860

MS Eliza Davis Collection, Southampton University.

GAD’S HILL PLACE,

HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT

Tuesday Fourth September 1860.

Dear Sir

On coming to town this morning, I find your enclosure of a cheque for £20 in payment for the Drawing room cornices and the Turkey carpet at Tavistock House.2 I beg to acknowledge its safe receipt with thanks.

James P. Davis Esquire

Dear Sir | Faithfully Yours

 CHARLES DICKENS

• 1. James Phineas Davis, solicitor, who practised, largely as money-lender, at 15 Clifford St, Bond St. CD had sold him the lease of Tavistock House, Aug 60; the Davises moved in, 4 Sep.
• 2. CD had asked Davis’s wife, Eliza, to indicate what fittings in Tavistock House she wished to buy before he moved (To Davis, 23 Aug, Pilgrim Letters 9, p. 294). Mrs Davis later protested to CD about the representation of Fagin as Jew in Oliver Twist (To Mrs Davis, 10 July 63, Pilgrim Letters 10, pp. 269-70 & nn).