The Charles Dickens Letters Project
To JOHN FORSTER,1 [APRIL-EARLY MAY 1837]
Composite text from fragment of facsimile (aa) and auction house transcription (bb) in Bonhams online catalogue, June 2012.
Date: CD moved into Doughty Street in early April 1837; letter written before death of Mary Hogarth on 7 May 1837.
aDoughty Street.
My Dear Forster.
It is cruel of you to tempt me. I must be firm. Tomorrow morning I am bound to work,4 though God knows I should enjoy a ride, to an extent that you can scarcely imagine possible.
Do this – Ride with Talfourd5 in the morning, and dine here together at your own hour. We will be quite alone, and make no preparation. Persuade him; tell him how much he would delight me; how delighteda bI should be to relax for a few hours; and how much better I should work tomorrow morning, if I had such a prospect before me. . . Tell him in short that I will take no denial, and that if he doesn't come, I will state it in the Dedication6 and appeal to the Public
suggesting that he "walk round this way to-night" and tell him what he has done; promising that "If I have reached the point I want to arrive at", he will "steal out to Pulteney Street".7
- 1. John Forster (1812-76; Dictionary of National Biography), historian and man of letters; CD’s closest friend, literary and legal advisor, and co-executor of his will. Compiled the authorised 3-volume biography The Life of Charles Dickens, 1872-4; see Pilgrim Letters 1 p. 239n.
- 2. Possible dates for this letter are 7, 14, 21, 28 April, or 5 May (all Fridays).
- 3. "morn" overwritten with "Afternoon".
- 4. CD was working on both Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist, besides his editorial work for Bentley's Miscellany.
- 5. Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795-1854; Dictionary of National Biography), barrister (later Judge), MP, essayist, and dramatist. "What an extraordinary, what an indefatigable man!" wrote Macready, on first hearing of his tragedy Ion (Diaries, I, 219). As literary executor, published Letters of Charles Lamb, with a Sketch of his Life, 1837, and Final Memorials of Charles Lamb, 1848. Serjeant-at-Law 1833; Whig MP for his native town of Reading 1835-41 and 1847-9. CD reported on him in Parliament and the Law Courts (e.g. in Norton v. Melbourne). They first met (perhaps through John Forster) soon after Talfourd's introduction of the Copyright Bill into Parliament, May 1837.
- 6. Pickwick Papers was dedicated to Talfourd.
- 7. Great Pulteney Street, London, location of the printing office of The Examiner, of which Forster was literary and dramatic critic.