The Charles Dickens Letters Project
To JOHN PRITT HARLEY,1 [16 APRIL 1838]
Replaces extract in Pilgrim Letters 12, pp. 561-2.
MS Charles Dickens Museum
Date: letter clearly refers to the the dinner given by Mitton on 19 Apr 1838 (CD’s diary entry, Pilgrim Letters 1, p. 633); Monday was 16 Apr.
Doughty Street
Monday Morning
My dear Harley.
A very old friend of mine,2 a solicitor who has just entered into a very advantageous partnership,3 is going to give a little feed to his co-partners,4 and a very few friends on Thursday next at the Albion in Aldersgate Street.5 Except the partners6 you know the seven who compose the party, for the others are Forster,7 my father,8 and myself.
I am anxious to give as much pleasure as I can on this occasion; and as my friend has (as most men have) a high admiration of your abilities, in no wise diminished by his having met you here at the christening,9 I cheerfully take upon myself (at his request) the asking you to join us. Say “no” and I never forgive you. Say “yes” and join me here at ten minutes past six next Thursday, and I shall always remain
Faithfully Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
- 1. John Pritt Harley (1786-1858; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography), actor and singer. Stage-manager and leading comedian at St James's Theatre from Sept 1836; chiefly celebrated for his Shakespearean clowns. CD's sister Fanny had played at his benefits, Drury Lane, 1827 and 1828; but there is no evidence that he and CD met before 1836, when at John Braham's request the part of Martin Stokes was added for him to CD's comic operetta The Village Coquettes (which CD dedicated to Harley; see Pilgrim Letters 1, pp. 151n, 167n).
- 2. Thomas Mitton (1812-78), solicitor, one of CD’s closest friends. Son of Thomas Mitton, publican, of Battle Bridge (the district now known as King's Cross), where the Mitton and Dickens families may at some time have been neighbours – perhaps in The Polygon, where the Dickenses were living 1827-8. In recollections given to the Evening Times when she was 95, Mitton’s sister Mary Ann (born 1821) claimed to have known CD well as a small girl. Mitton and CD were clerks together for a short time during 1828-9 in Charles Molloy's office, 8 New Square, Lincoln's Inn, where Mitton served his articles. He qualified in 1833; practised law at 3 New Inn, Strand 1834-7; and early in 1838 joined Smithson & Dunn at 23 Southampton Buildings. He acted as CD’s solicitor for twenty years. See William J. Carlton, “The Strange Story of Thomas Mitton”, Dickensian 56 (1960): 41-52.
- 3. When Mitton joined Smithson & Dunn, CD stood surety for £1050, which Mitton borrowed from his own family to buy a third share in the practice; the firm became known as Smithson, Dunn & Mitton.
- 4. Charles Smithson (1804-44), solicitor; son of Richard Smithson, Bailiff of Malton, Yorkshire. He was the “professional friend” mentioned in the Preface to the First Cheap Edition of Nicholas Nickleby, 1848, who, on CD's visit to Yorkshire (Jan 1838), gave him letters of introduction. He married T. J. Thompson's sister Elizabeth, and CD was godfather to their daughter Mary (born 16 Mar 1843). The Smithsons visited CD and Catherine at Twickenham and Petersham 1838-9. Benjamin Dunn (b. 1798) left the firm in 1839 to work on the railways; in 1845 he was Secretary of the Thirsk, Malton, and Driffeld North Eastern Railway, the firm for which CD’s brother Alfred (1822-60) worked as an engineer.
- 5. The Albion at 153 Aldersgate Street was a fashionable inn, famed for its good food and wines. CD dined there often; it was the location of the Nickleby dinner on 5 Oct 1839.
- 6. The word ‘three’ deleted before ‘partners’.
- 7. John Forster (1812-76), journalist, biographer, and CD's closest friend.
- 8. John Dickens (1785–1851).
- 9. CD’s son Charley was christened on 9 Dec 1837.