The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To MADAME CÉLESTE,1 [?JULY-SEPTEMBER 1851] 

Replaces mention in Pilgrim Letters 6, p. 501.

MS Hackney Library, Barton College.

 Date: probably during her reappearance at the Adelphi in The Green Bushes and other melodramas, 17 July-22 Sep 1851; see To Frank Stone, 26 Aug 1851, in Pilgrim Letters 6, p. 472.

Devonshire Terrace
            Monday Evening

Dear Madame Celeste.
            If you happen to have a box disengaged tonight, will you give it to me? I am ashamed to ask you so suddenly, but we have a friend from the country to
amuse on2 an hour's notice. If you have not a spare box, a verbal answer
by my servant, the bearer, will suffice.
                                                                        Faithfully Yours

                                                                        CHARLES DICKENS

• 1. Céleste Elliott, always known as Madame Céleste (1810/11-82; Dictionary of National Biography), actress and dancer; born in France, but settled in England after making a fortune during her second American tour 1834-7; Benjamin Webster installed her as manager of the Adelphi 1844. Until that date she had appeared exclusively in dance and pantomime; but from 1844 speaking roles were created to exploit her broken English, grace of movement and gift for pathos, the most famous being Miami, huntress of the Mississippi, in John Baldwin Buckstone's The Green Bushes, or, a Hundred Years Ago (first performed 1845).
• 2. "a sudden" deleted after "on".