The Charles Dickens Letters Project

Advanced Search

Theme

Correspondent

How to cite:

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].

Database:

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

Find us on social media:

Period:

1861-1870

Theme(s):

friends

family

theatre

America

To CHARLES FECHTER,1 28 JUNE 1869

Facsimile in Doyle Auctions online catalogue, April 2013

GAD'S HILL PLACE,

HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT.

Monday Twenty Eighth June 1869

My Dear Fechter

I was not here when your note arrived. Georgina sent it after me to the office (where I was not), and it came back here, only to-day.

I do not see any objection to your sending that Telegram to Booth.2

Ever affecy.

CD.

1. Charles Albert Fechter (1824-79); actor and playwright. CD first saw him perform in 1856, and thought him one of the finest actors of his generation (see Pilgrim Letters 9, p. 405). The pair were close friends in the 1860s. Fechter left Britain for the United States in December 1869.
2. Edwin Thomas Booth (1833-93); American actor, famous for his portrayals of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and brother of John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. In February 1869 he opened Booth’s Theatre in New York City. Fechter was no doubt negotiating with Booth concerning his upcoming visit to the United States.