The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To SAMUEL JOSEPH,1 22 DECEMBER 1841

Text from facsimile in Just Collecting Ltd online catalogue, June 2021.
Address: _____ Joseph Esquire | 41 Upper Charlotte Street | Fitzroy Square

Devonshire Terrace
Wednesday, Twenty Second December | 1841. 

My Dear Sir.

            I regret that I am prevented by business which I must attend to, from coming to you to day. I will be with you tomorrow at 12.2

                        Faithfully Yours

                                    CHARLES DICKENS

_____ Joseph3 Esquire

• 1. Samuel Joseph (1791-1850), sculptor, a pupil of Peter Rouw; attended Royal Academy Schools 1811, and gained the silver medal in 1811 and 1812, and gold medal in 1815. Moved to Edinburgh in 1823, and became a founder member of the Royal Scottish Academy. He returned to open a studio in London in 1829. His most famous work is the statue of William Wilberforce in Westminster Abbey (1838).
• 2. CD was arranging sittings for the bust commissioned by Basil Hall, a great admirer of CD's work; see Pilgrim Letters 2, p. 245. Samuel Haydon, a friend of John Dickens and the family, saw the bust at the time CD was sitting for it ("always accompanied by some friend") and considered it admirable, "full of life" (F. G. Kitton, CD by Pen and Pencil, I, 20). But Hall, presumably because of his breakdown in 1842, failed to buy it; and in July 1848 Joseph, then bankrupt, was still seeking a purchaser. CD admired the bust, but declined buying it himself. The clay model, never even cast into plaster, was later destroyed (F. G. Kitton, ibid).
• 3. Clearly CD did not know Joseph's first name.