The Charles Dickens Letters Project

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Individual letter:

Dickens, Charles. To [addressee], [date of letter]. Charles Dickens Letters Project, ed. Leon Litvack, Emily Bell, Lydia Craig and Jeremy Parrott (London: Dickens Fellowship). [URL of individual letter], [date of access].

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Charles Dickens Letters Project, ed. Leon Litvack, Emily Bell, Lydia Craig and Jeremy Parrott (London: Dickens Fellowship), DickensLetters.com.

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Period:

1841-1850

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publishing

To THOMAS GASPEY,1 [early 1840s]

Envelope only.
Text from facsimile in One of a Kind Collectibles online catalogue, July 2021.
Address: Thomas Gaspey Esqre. | 6 Tavistock Street | Bedford Square
Date: Handwriting and signature suggest early 1840s.

1. Thomas Gaspey (1788-1871; Dictionary of National Biography), journalist and novelist. At some time on staffs of both the Morning and Evening Chronicle; proprietor and editor of the Sunday Times, 1828. He contributed five papers to Bentley's Miscellany, June 1837-July 1838, four over the initials "H.T." In CD's Diary, 31 Jan 1839 (Pilgrim Letters 1, p. 639), there is a memorandum to read Gaspey's "Chapter on Executioners" (with Barnaby Rudge in mind) – perhaps suggested at dinner the previous night. Gaspey's The Mystery, or Forty Years Ago (3 vols, 1820) contains three chapters on the Gordon riots, in one of which (vol. 1, chap. 7) appear grim jests similar to those in Barnaby Rudge are made about Ned Dennis, the executioner; in the same author's History of George Godfrey (3 vols, 1828), there is also an execution scene (vol. 3, chap. 1) with a sudden reprieve.