The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To J. V. STAPLES,1 3 APRIL 1844

MS Fay and Geoffrey Elliot Collection, Leeds University Library. Address: Mr. James Verry Staples / Stokes Croft School / Bristol. PM 13 Apr 44.

Private 

1 Devonshire Terrace

York Gate Regents Park.

Third April 1844.

Dear Sir

I have been very much gratified by the receipt of your interesting letter; and I assure you that it would have given me heartfelt satisfaction to have been in your place when you read my little Carol to the Poor in your neighbourhood.2 I have great faith in the Poor; to the best of my ability I always endeavour to present them in a favorable light to the rich; and I shall never cease, I hope, until I die, to advocate their being made as happy and as wise as the circumstances of their condition in its utmost improvement, will admit of their becoming.3 I mention this to assure you of two things. Firstly, that I try to deserve their attention. And secondly, that any such marks of their approval and confidence as you relate to me, are most acceptable to my feelings, and go at once to my heart.

Believe me / Faithfully Yours  

 CHARLES DICKENS

Mr James Verry Staples

• 1. James Verry Staples, of Clifton, Bristol; friend of Mrs Evans of Bristol, mother of Frederick Mullet Evans.
• 2. Staples described the circumstances in a letter to Forster of 19 Mar 1872 (MS University of California, Los Angeles). Spending Christmas 1843 with Mrs Evans, who had received a copy of the Carol, Staples decided to give a public reading to the Bristol Domestic Mission Institution; the result was “a room full of the very poor, who gave undivided attention”. The reading was spread over two evenings and so successful that it was repeated. Staples decided to tell CD of the reading, thus eliciting this letter, a copy of which he enclosed for Forster: see further Pilgrim Letters 4, p. 95 n.2.
• 3. Word (illegible) crossed out by CD.