Project Gutenberg's The Letters of Charles Dickens, by Charles Dickens

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Title: The Letters of Charles Dickens
Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856

Author: Charles Dickens

Editor: Mamie Dickens
Georgina Hogarth

Release Date: June 20, 2008 [EBook #25852]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS ***

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For the reader: Things that were handwritten are denoted in the text as
HW:

Asterisms in the text are denoted by [asterism]

THE LETTERS

OF

[HW: Charles Dickens]

THE LETTERS

OF

CHARLES DICKENS.

EDITED BY

HIS SISTER-IN-LAW AND HIS ELDEST DAUGHTER.

In Two Volumes.

VOL. I.

1833 to 1856.

London:

CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.

1880.

[_The Right of Translation is Reserved._]

CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS,

CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.

TO

KATE PERUGINI,

THIS MEMORIAL OF HER FATHER

IS LOVINGLY INSCRIBED

BY HER AUNT AND SISTER.

PREFACE.

We intend this Collection of Letters to be a Supplement to the "Life of
Charles Dickens," by John Forster. That work, perfect and exhaustive as
a biography, is only incomplete as regards correspondence; the scheme of
the book having made it impossible to include in its space any letters,
or hardly any, besides those addressed to Mr. Forster. As no man ever
expressed _himself_ more in his letters than Charles Dickens, we believe
that in publishing this careful selection from his general
correspondence we shall be supplying a want which has been universally
felt.

Our request for the loan of letters was so promptly and fully responded
to, that we have been provided with more than sufficient material for
our work. By arranging the letters in chronological order, we find that
they very frequently explain themselves and form a narrative of the
events of each year. Our collection dates from 1833, the commencement of
Charles Dickens's literary life, just before the starting of the
"Pickwick Papers," and i