Brief description: Draft letter from Charles Dickens to W M Thackeray, June 1847
Label: This draft letter was written by Charles Dickens in shorthand to W. M. Thackeray, in which Dickens seeks an end to the recent dispute between Thackeray and Dickens’s close friend John Forster. Unfortunately, there are many indecipherable shorthand references in this letter which obscures its overall meaning. In essence, Dickens wrote to Thackeray in order to seek a resolution and at the end of the letter Dickens says that he regrets that there is such a division among such men.
Collection: Archives & Manuscripts
Object number: A516
Object type: letter
Production person: Dickens, Charles
Production date: 12/06/1847
Inscription content: [transcription from CD's shorthand and accompanying notes taken from Pilgrim V, pp 86-7; decoded by W.J.Carlton and W.L.Stower Hewett.]

My dear Thackeray,
I received your note at breakfast this morning and will take care to do what I ought to with it in the course of the day.Trust me I have [possibly 'hearty objection'] myself for [possibly 'for views how all others' or 'for peace ... otherwise': reading and sense irreconcilable] carry out this measure. [or 'its measures'] It is without doubt a very definite success for sense, and coming [sense suggests 'going'] to the root of those 3 mistakes you state so fairly at the end of your letter. I have seen such [a word or two indecipherable] on the part of the 3 words unfortunately [or 'inevitably'] concerned in them [a word or two indecipherable] and such a spirit [possibly 'breathe a generous spirit'] that I have every hour more and more regretted that there should be any division among such men.

Draft letter from Charles Dickens to W M Thackeray, June 1847