Brief description: Letter, from John Dickens to Joseph Parkes, 6 June 1834
Label: 1834 was a year of financial difficulty for the Dickens family. John, Charles's father, would later be arrested for debt for a second time in November. John and his brother-in-law Edward Barrow made a plan to get Charles a job at the Morning Chronicle, a respected daily newspaper that supported the Whigs (one of the two main political parties in the United Kingdom). Barrow, John, and Charles wrote to various people including the editor John Black and Joseph Parkes, an influential agent of the Whig party. The campaign was a success, Charles joined the Chronicle staff in August, beginning a successful journalistic career that would lead to his fiction-writing fame.
Collection: Archives & Manuscripts
Object number: B401
Object type: letter
Production date: 6/6/1834
Inscription content: Private

18 Bentinck Street
Manchester Square
6 June 1834

My dear Sir,

In consequence of my son as I stated having addressed a letter to Mr Black as I communicated to you when I did myself the pleasure of calling on you, he had an interview with that gentleman last evening, but it appears he had not had any communication from you with regard to my son's application.

I trust you will excuse what I fear will appear to be an unwarranted importunity if I again solicit your kind interference on his behalf. it is a matter such moment that I trust you will excuse my anxiety, begging at the same time to assure you that I would not press the point did I not know his competance in every respect for the duties he will be required to perform.

His capabilities have over and over again been borne testimony to by peers and members, and the extraordinary facility with which he writes out, and would back him against any man in the Gallery in that respect, is a very valuable consideration.

Pray excuse my troubling
you
and believe me
My dear Sir
Your obliged servant
John Dickens
Credit line: Purchased with support from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Art Fund, the Friends of the National Library and the Dickens Fellowship.

Letter from John Dickens to Joseph Parkes, 6 June 1834