Gad's Hill, giving up his London house, and taking a furnished house
for the sake of his daughters for a few months of the London season.
And, as his daughter Kate was to be married this summer to Mr. Charles
Collins, this intention was confirmed and carried out. He made
arrangements for the sale of Tavistock House to Mr. Davis, a Jewish
gentleman, and he gave up possession of it in September. Up to this time
Gad's Hill had been furnished merely as a temporary summer
residence--pictures, library, and all best furniture being left in the
London house. He now set about beautifying and making Gad's Hill
thoroughly comfortable and homelike. And there was not a year
afterwards, up to the year of his death, that he did not make some
addition or improvement to it. He also furnished, as a private
residence, a sitting-room and some bedrooms at his office in Wellington
Street, to be used, when there was no house in London, as occasional
town quarters by himself, his daughter, and sister-in-law.

He began in this summer his occasional papers for "All the Year Round,"
which he called "The Uncommercial Traveller," and which were continued
at intervals in his journal until 1869.

In the autumn of this year he began another story, to be published
weekly in "All the Year Round." The letter to Mr. Forster, which we
give, tells him of this beginning and gives him the name of the book.
The first number of "Great Expectations" appeared on the 1st December.
The Christmas number, this time, was written jointly by himself and Mr.
Wilkie Collins. The scene was laid at Clovelly, and they made a journey
together into Devonshire and Cornwall, for the purpose of this story, in
November.

The letter to Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton is, unfortunately, the only one
we have as yet been able to procure. The present Lord Lytton, the
Viceroy of India, has kindly endeavoured to help us even during his
absence from England. But it was found to be impossible without his own
assistance to make the necessary search among his father's papers. And
he has promised us that, on his return, he will find and lend to us,
many letters from Charles Dickens, which are certainly in existence, to
his distinguished fellow-writer and great friend. We hope, therefore, it
may be possible for us at some future time to be able to publish these
letters, as well as those addressed to the present Lord Lytton (when he
was Mr. Robert Lytton, otherwise "Owen Meredith," and frequent
con