The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To LLEWELLYNN JEWITT,1 18 AUGUST 1851

Text from facsimile in Christie’s catalogue, June 2005. On mourning paper.

Broadstairs, Kent. | Monday Eighteenth August | 1851.

Sir.

I am very sorry that, owing to my absence from London, I did not receive your letter until Saturday last. And I regret that my engagements will not admit of my accepting the invitation with which I am honored by the Plymouth Mechanics’ Institute.2 I esteem and appreciate that invitation, and have the warmest sympathy with all such excellent associations, but my avocations render it out of my power to attend.

I am Sir | Faithfully Yours

 CHARLES DICKENS

Lleywellynn3 Jewitt Esquire

• 1. Llewellynn Frederick William Jewitt (1816-86; Dictionary of National Biography), antiquary. Chief Librarian of Plymouth, 1849-53. Publications include Ceramic Art of Great Britain (1878), Graves, Mounds, and Their Contents (1870) and, with Samuel Carter Hall, Stately Homes of England (1874-7).
• 2. Founded 1825; CD presumably had been asked to give an address at the inauguration of the Institute's new building in Princess Square, 10 Sep.
• 3. Misspelt by CD.