DICKENS CHARLES Autograph Letter Signed to an unknown recipi

Sale 2376 - Lot 182

Price Realized: $ 3,380

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500

DICKENS, CHARLES. Autograph Letter Signed, to an unknown recipient ("My Dear Sir"), requesting an estimate for the cost to publish a book by Mr. Townshend [Religious Opinions by the late Reverend Chauncy Hare Townshend, 1869] and thanking for books on mines and miners. 1 page, 8vo, pale blue paper, "Gads Hill Place" stationery but holograph "Shelbourne Hotel" is written above letterhead; recipient's name clipped out with loss to lower left corner (not affecting signature), horizontal folds, faint marginal discoloration from matting; matted with portrait and framed. Dublin, 7 January 1869

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"The late Mr. Townshend's will obliges me to produce a volume of his 'religious opinions'.
"Will you send me an estimate . . . of the cost of print, paper, binding and publishing of a handsome octavo volume, containing from 200 to 300 long pages[?] Good paper. An edition of 200 would be amply large enough. . . . I include your commission and some moderate advertizing. . . .
"I have to thank you for some books at Christmas. The book on mines and miners has interested me exceedingly."
When Reverend Townshend died at the end of February 1868, Dickens learned with surprise that his deceased friend had appointed him executor of the estate. The will included a request that Dickens compile Townshend's notes on religion and publish them, a task he evidently did not savor.