The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To WILLIAM DUDLEY,1 19 APRIL 1851 

Text from facsimile in Bonhams online catalogue, May 2020.

On mourning paper.

London, 1 Devonshire Terrace

Nineteenth April 1851. 

Dear Sir

            I received your letter at Malvern.2 Since then I have been in some trouble. The sudden death of a little daughter3 – she was called Dora, in remembrance of a book you have read4 – has much afflicted us. But I cannot refrain from thanking you, and assuring you that I am truly gratified by your communication.

                                    Faithfully Yours

                                    CHARLES DICKENS 

• 1. Unidentified.
• 2. CD travelled to Malvern in March 1851 so that his wife Catherine might receive treatment from Dr James Wilson for a nervous illness — probably abnormally long-lasting attacks of migraine combined with post-natal depression.
• 3. CD's daughter Dora had died suddenly on 14 Apr 1851.
• 4. CD had named his daughter after the first wife of the protagonist in David Copperfield. CD expressed similar sentiments in letters to Emile de la Rue on 25 Apr 1851, and Lydia Sigourney on 24 May 1851; see Pilgrim Letters 6, pp. 363, 400.