The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To WILLIAM WOODALL,1 9 MAY 1863 

MS Christopher Bing.

GAD'S HILL PLACE

HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT.

Saturday Ninth May 1863. 

Sir

            In answer to your obliging letter dated the day before yesterday, I beg to say that I cannot propose any conditions on which I could have the pleasure of reading in Burslem.2

                                    Faithfully Yours

                                    CHARLES DICKENS

William Woodall Esquire

• 1. William Woodall (1832-1901; Dictionary of National Biography), partner in the china manufacturing business of James Macintyre, in Burslem, near Stoke-on-Trent.
• 2. Woodall had written to CD in late April 1863, asking him to entertain a request from the Wedgwood Memorial Committee, established to erect a memorial building in memory of master potter Josiah Wedgwood (1730-95). See To William Woodall, 28 April 1863. CD never delivered a public reading in Burslem.