The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To JAMES EDWARDS,1 12 OCTOBER 1845

Replaces mention in Pilgrim Letters 4, p. 403.

Facsimile in Ira & Larry Goldberg Coins & Collectables online catalogue, April 2014

DEVONSHIRE TERRACE,

Twelfth October 1845

Dear Sir

My visit to Manchester will so very hurried, that I have declined Mr Heywood’s2 extremely kind Invitation. I regret the cause very much, but it is really a relief to me be free. Mr Jerrold3 and I purpose coming down4 together on the Wednesday Evening; and we shall leave on the Morning after the Soirée. Pray do not think of having anyone waiting at the Railway, as we shall drive straight to our hotel and be quite at home.

Dear Sir

Faithfully Yours

CHARLES DICKENS

James Edwards Esquire

• 1. James Edwards, probably secretary of the Manchester Athenaeum (see Pilgrim Letters 4, p. 403).
• 2. James Heywood (1810-97), FRS and FSA 1839; founder of Manchester Athenaeum, 28 Oct 35, and first President; trustee of Owens College 1845-60; MP for North Lancs 1847-57. CD met him at Manchester in 1843.
• 3. Douglas Jerrold (1803-57), dramatist, radical journalist and wit; author of over 60 plays, including his most famous, Black-eyed Susan (1829). He was one of CD’s closest friends. Edited Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine and Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper.
• 4. CD had planned to travel to Manchester with Jerrold and John Leech to attend a meeting of the Athenaeum there on 22 October, but abandoned the plan on account of the advanced state of Catherine’s pregnancy; she gave birth to Alfred D’Orsay Tennyson Dickens on 28 October.