Dickens, Charles | Autograph letter signed, to Lady Talfourd, upon the death of her husband

Dickens, Charles

Autograph letter signed, to Lady Talfourd, upon the death of her husband

2 pages (to sight: 170 x 108 mm). Writen from Tavistock House, 17 March 1854, and signed by the author ("Charles Dickens"). Matted, glazed, and framed; not examined out of frame.

"When I heard, on Monday afternoon of the bereavement we both in our far different places so heavily deplore, I went instantly to Russell Square. You were not long gone, and I left a note (such as I could write, in the first agitation of so sudden a shock) for Frank."

A poignant and personal letter, penned by the greatest writer of the Victorian age.

An emotional letter to Lady Talfourd, upon the death of her husband, English judge and author Sir Thomas Talfourd, who had died of an apoplectic seizure in court while addressing the jury from his judge's seat.

In addition to being a judge, Talfourd was a Radical Politian and an author. In 1837, he introduced a copyright bill—a keen interest of Dickens's—in the House of Commons. In the same year, Dickens Dedicated The Pickwick Papers to Talfourd. The dissolution of Parliament that year upon the death of William IV meant that it had to be reintroduced in the new Parliament in 1838. There, the bill was met with strong opposition, but in 1842, a somewhat revised copyright bill it was finally passed into law.

Dickens was amongst the mourners at Talfourd's funeral.

REFERENCES

Charles Dickens Letters Project, Leon Litvack, Emily Bell, Lydia Craig, and Jeremy Parrott (eds.) https://dickensletters.com/letters/rachel-talfourd-17-mar-1854