Brief description: Letter, Charles Dickens to Gilbert Elliot (Dean of Bristol), 26 December 1868
Label: Charles Dickens writes to Elliot, the Dean of Bristol Cathedral, thanking him for the book he has only just received, which concerned Elliot’s father. Dickens mentions Lady Russell and Sir Austen Henry Layard, as well as a passing political comment. He also refers to his 'insatiable "Readings".
Collection: Archives & Manuscripts
Object number: A898
Object type: letter
Production person: Dickens, Charles
Production date: 26 December 1868
Inscription content: Gad’s Hill Place
Higham by Rochester, Kent

Saturday Twenty Sixth December 1868

My Dear Dean
I should have written to you sooner to acknowledge the receipt of the book you kindly sent to me, if I had received it. But it had not come to hand when I left London for Scotland a fortnight ago, and it was only on my return last Tuesday that I found the Volume on my table. In the meantime I had seen many extracts from it, and I have since read it intact. It is highly interesting – full of bright pictures of society and nature – and contains some excellent specimens of letter writing. The impression it conveys of your father is throughout delightful; perfectly delightful.
I had a kind letter from Lady Russell yesterday, giving me to whole months out of which to choose a day and night for Pembroke Lodge. But the insatiable “Readings” yawn for the whole of that space of time, and for March April and May to boot. I have a wild fancy that I shall sometimes try when idle afterwards, but it is one of the many things I have never been able to do yet.
Layard is with us here for christmas, and expounds ferocious designs in connexion with the Public Works. It is long surely, since any Government had such chances before it as this Government had. But I miss Lord Russell surely.
With many thanks for your remembrance.
Always my Dear Dean
Faithfully yours
CHARLES DICKENS
Credit line: Purchased with support from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, Friends of the National Libraries and the Dickens Fellowship.
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Letter from Charles Dickens to Gilbert Elliot (Dean of Bristol), 26 December 1868