Autograph Letter Signed Charles Dickens, one page, 4.25x7". Broadstairs, Kent, September 26, 1850. To T.J. Serle. In full, "I am very busy here, and not likely (I think) to be in London before November. But I write to Coutts’s by this post, requesting them to send you the Elton account. Ever Faithfully yours." Superb six-loop flourish under Dickens’ signature! Thin mounting remnant at right edge on verso of blank integral sheet. Fine condition. Published in The Letters of Charles Dickens, Pilgrim Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), Volume VI. Actor and dramatist Thomas James Serle (1798-1889) was Dickens’ Acting Manager. As an actor, Dickens performed frequently and enthusiastically in amateur theatricals. At times, he also directed the productions. The Elton account was opened seven years earlier by Dickens as chairman of a committee formed to financially help the children of actor Edward William Elton. Elton’s wife had died in 1840, leaving him a widower with seven children, six of them girls, ages 8 to 20. Returning home by sea from an acting engagement in Edinburgh on July 19, 1843, Elton drowned when the vessel Pegasus struck a rock and sank. He had been Chairman and Treasurer of the Theatrical Fund. It was mainly through the exertions of Dickens, aided by members of Elton’s own profession, that provision was made for his large family. Advertisements for benefits were placed in London newspapers, the first on July 26, 1843, headed: THE ORPHAN FAMILY of the late Mr. W. ELTON. The ad read: A Committee is formed for the purpose of arranging a Benefit for the seven fatherless and motherless CHILDREN of Mr. W. ELTON, late of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, a sufferer in the fatal wreck of the Pegasus. The performances will be announced as soon as possible; in the mean time offers of professional service on the occasion will be gratefully received, as well as subscriptions in money, by CHARLES DICKENS. Dickens’ checks were written on his Coutts & Co. account Charles Dickens lived and worked in Bleak House in Broadstairs, Kent, England, a coastal town about 75 miles east of London, mostly during summer holidays spent there with his family from 1837 to 1859. He and his family lived at 1 Devonshire Terrace in London. Dickens stayed in Broadstairs for another four weeks, returning to London on October 24th. That day, he wrote a friend I should have written to you sooner, but for having been so closely occupied with Copperfield, as to have had no leisure for any kind of correspondence. He had begun writing David Copperfield in 1848 and, like most of his novels, it was published in 19 monthly one-shilling instalments. Dickens had completed David Copperfield in Broadstairs before returning to London. Instalment I (chapters 1-3) was published in May 1849. At the time of this letter, Dickens was working on the final chapters. In November 1850, a double-issue, XIX-XX (chapters 58-64), concluded David Copperfield.
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