The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To JOHN TAYLOR SINNETT,1 2 SEPTEMBER 1864

MS Christie’s Auction Catalogue, June 2012.

OFFICE OF ALL THE YEAR ROUND, 

Friday Second September 1864

My Dear Sir

In reply to your letter I beg to inform you that Mr. Sala2 is in America,3 and that I know nothing of his arrangements or requirements in reference to a French translation of his story.4 But the completed book is to be published by Messrs. Chapman and Hall, and I think it probable that they may be in a condition to treat with you if you address them.

John Taylor Sinnett Esquire

Faithfully Yours 

 CHARLES DICKENS

• 1. John Taylor Sinnett (1807-80), author and translator. He offered papers to Household Words, but none were published. CD described him (1855) as a hanger-on at the skirts of the press, to whom he had given a sovereign now and then (see further Pilgrim Letters 7, pp. 199n, 673-4 & nn).
• 2. George Augustus Sala (1828-95; Dictionary of National Biography), journalist. Educated partly in Paris and trained as a draftsman. In 1848 briefly edited the weekly Chat; became regular (if not wholly reliable) contributor to Household Words and All the Year Round. From 1857 worked for the Daily Telegraph. See further Pilgrim Letters 6, p. 458 & nn.
• 3. Sala had accepted an offer by the Daily Telegraph to go to America as a war correspondent, leaving in Nov 1863 (Life and Adventures of G.A. Sala, 1895, II, 34).
• 4. Quite Alone, 37 instalments (All the Year Round 13 Feb-12 Nov 64, XI, 1 – XII, 323; 3 vols, 1864). Andrew Halliday wrote the last six instalments (Pilgrim Letters 10, pp. 439 & n, 451-2 & nn). Sinnett presumably recommended works to French publishers for translation from English.