- Brief description
- Letter, from Charles Dickens to Thomas Powell, 2 March 1844
- Label
- Thomas Powell was a writer and friend of Dickens who was caught embezzling money from his employers and fled to America. He later wrote a book The Living Authors of England in which he claimed Dickens based Paul Dombey from Dombey and Son on Thomas Chapman, the man Powell had embezzled. Dickens responded by revealing Powell's crimes to journalists in New York, leading to a court case which Dickens settled out of court. In this letter during their earlier friendship, Dickens thanks Powell for tutoring his brother Augustus and references Chapman and Co, the company Powell would later steal from.
- Collection
- Archives & Manuscripts
- Object number
- A452
- Object type
- letter
- Production person
- Dickens, Charles
- Production date
- 2/03/1844
- Inscription content
- Devonshire Terrace. | Second March 1844.
My Dear Powell.
I really am more indebted and obliged to you than I can express, for your great interest and kindness in the matter of my small "bit of blood"--to use a sporting phrase. And though there be five hundred thousand gallons of water to every scruple of Spirit in the Total abstinence Volume, yet will I read it through and through, and never Wink.
Audiences of twos of thousands have been driving me mad at Liverpool and Birmingham, with their loving cheers. Ah! It is a brave thing, by Heaven it is, to walk out of the room where one is shut up for so many hours of such a short life, into a sea of agitated faces, and think that they are always looking on--
Woa, Spirit Number one. Woho my boy. Gently, gently. Don't be maudlin, Spirit. Think of your ethereal essenence, my buck. Steady, steady.
Come and take a little Ambrosia here, next Sunday (I mean tomorrow week) at 6 exactly, will you? I have a trifle of bottled Dawn--the old Aurora particular --the real crusted Rosy--if you can make your dinner off that, and a Zephyr or two. I shall be delighted to see you.
Ever Faithfully Yours
Ariel.
P.S. You don't happen to know anybody who wants a blossom (furnished)--do you? I think of letting my harebell.
Home
/ A452