The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To M. LOUIS PRÉVOST,1 [?EARLY DECEMBER 1839]

Text from facsimile in unidentified on line catalogue. Address: M. Prevost. Date: just before the move to Devonshire Terrace; CD’s first letter from there is dated 12 Dec (a Thursday), so possibly the Friday before (6 Dec).

Doughty Street

Friday – late at night.

My Dear Sir

I regret that I did not know in sufficient time to-day to write to you, that I could not have my usual pleasant hour with you in the morning. I find, however, that some matters of business connected with our removal from hence, call me from home so early, and will occupy me so long, that I have no alternative but to postpone our reading.2 We have now two or three readings to make up, and I hope we shall soon be able to redeem them. My brother3 shall call on you before Wednesday with our new address. Meantime believe me 

M. Prevost4

Very truly Yours  

 CHARLES DICKENS

• 1. Louis Augustin Prévost (1790-1858; Dictionary of National Biography), linguist, of 25 New Street, Dorset Square.  linguist. Born at Troyes; settled in England 1823; taught languages 1823-43; and served on the British Museum staff 1843-55, where he catalogued the collection of Chinese books. He mastered over 40 languages. He is referred to in the Critic, XVII (1858), 220, and in Robert Cowtan, Memories of the British Museum, 1872, p. 360, as CD's French tutor; and this is supported by payments to him of £2.7.6 on 8 Dec 37, £3.3 on 1 Feb and £2.16 on 28 Feb 40, recorded in CD's account-book (MS Messrs Coutts). W. J. Carlton suggests that he may have been the French master at Wellington House, described in "Our School" (Household Words, 11 Oct 51, IV, 51): see "Dickens Studies French", Dickensian, LIX, (1963), 21-7. See also Pilgrim Letters 2, p. 461n.
• 2. i.e. class or study session (as in “reading” a subject at University).
• 3. Frederic Dickens (1820-68): see Pilgrim Letters 1, p. 47n.
• 4. i.e. Monsieur Prévost.