15 September 1872 • London, England (MS: Davis, Jr, UCCL 00807)
Livy darling everybody says lecture—lecture—lecture—but I have not the least idea of doing it—certainly not at present. Mr.Ⓐemendation Dob DolbyⒶemendation, who took Dickens to America, is coming to talk business to me tomorrowⒶemendation, though I have sent him word once before, already, that I can’t be hired to talk here, because I have no time to spare.1explanatory note
There is too much sociability—I do not get along fast enough with work. On Tomorrow I lunch with Mr. Toole & a member of Parliament—Toole is the most able Comedian of the day.2explanatory note AndⒶemendation then I am done for a while. On Tuesday3explanatory note I mean to hang a card to my key-box, inscribed “Gone out of the City for a week”—& then I shall go to work & work hard. One can’t be caught in a hive of 4,000,000 people., like this.
I have got such a perfectly delightful razor. I have a notion to buy some for Charley, Theodore,4explanatory note & Slee—for I know they have no such razors there. I have got a neat little watch chain for Annie5explanatory note—$20.
I love you my darling. My love to all of you.
Mrs. Samℓ. L. Clemens | Cor Forest & Hawthorne sts | Hartford | Conn. in upper left corner: U.S. of America | flourish on flap: slc postmarked: london w 3 sp16 72 docketed by OLC: Sep 15/—
Clemens did not lecture in England until the fall of 1873. George Dolby (d. 1900), a theatrical manager, was hired to escort Dickens on his reading tour in Britain in April–June 1866. The ailing and high-strung Dickens found Dolby not only an efficient manager but an amiable companion, and they became friends. Dolby accompanied Dickens on his second tour in Britain (January–May 1867), his American tour (December 1867–April 1868), and his final tour, again in Britain (October 1868–April 1869), which ended prematurely when Dickens became too ill to go on. Dolby published his memories of these days “on the road” with his “Chief” in Charles Dickens As I Knew Him, calling the tours “the most brilliantly successful enterprises of their kind that were ever undertaken” (Dolby 1885, vii; Page, 120–35). In 1900 Clemens recalled Dolby as a “gladsome gorilla” who was “large & ruddy, full of life & strength & spirits, a tireless and energetic talker, & always overflowing with good-nature & bursting with jollity” (SLC 1900, 34, in MTA , 1:140; see also Ollé).
The “member of Parliament” was probably Douglas Straight (25 Sept 72 to OLCclick to open link). John Lawrence Toole (1830–1906) was a renowned comic actor and theatrical manager. As a young man, he was employed as a wine merchant’s clerk when Dickens saw him in an amateur play and urged him to pursue a stage career. His professional debut occurred in 1852.
Tuesday, 17 September.
Charles Langdon and Theodore Crane.
Annie Moffett.
MS, collection of Chester L. Davis, Jr.
L5 , 159–160; MTB , 1:469, excerpt; MTL , 1:199; Christie 1991, lot 188, with omission.
Chester L. Davis, Sr., probably acquired the MS from Clara Clemens Samossoud between 1949 and 1962 (see Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance). After Davis’s death in 1987, the MS was owned by Chester L. Davis, Jr., who sold it through Christie’s in December 1991.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.