DICKENS AT THE TIME WHEN ‘GREAT EXPECTATIONS’ WAS JUST COMING OUT DICKENS (Charles, 1812-1870, Novelist)

Fine Autograph Letter in his characteristic blue ink, with his embellished monogram ‘C.D.’ to Frederic CHAPMAN (1823-1895, Publisher and partner in Chapman and Hall) sending “another little job for Clowes’s. It is a very short one. I have written all needful instructions fro the printer. Will you let them have a few sheets of the same paper as before, and direct them to pull three piles [?] for me (when revised) as in the other instances, and then to distribute. Speed will be a great convenience to m, as my Reading time is fast drawing on and I want the book by me any hour...” 1 side 8vo., Gads Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent, Saturday Night, 1st September

Chapman and Hall published the works of Charles Dickens, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, among others. In 1880 Chapman turned his business into a limited company which he ran until his death. On 28th March 1870, three months before his death, Charles Dickens signed an agreement with Frederic Chapman and Henry Trollope confirming their shared ownership of Dickens's copyrights. Chapman bought the remainder of those copyrights after Dickens's death; he also carefully cultivated Dickens' relatives Georgina Hogarth and Mary Dickens when they proposed to edit Dickens's letters. Dickens, in fact, made Chapman & Hall rich.
William Clowes Ltd. is a British printing company founded in London in 1803 by William Clowes. It grew from a small, one press firm to one of the world's largest printing companies in the mid-19th century.
After separating from Catherine, Dickens undertook a series of popular and remunerative reading tours which, together with his journalism, were to absorb most of his creative energies for the next decade, in which he was to write only two novels. His first reading tour, lasting from April 1858 to February 1859, consisted of 129 appearances in 49 towns throughout England, Scotland and Ireland. Dickens's continued fascination with the theatrical world was written into the theatre scenes in Nicholas Nickleby, and he found an outlet in public readings. In 1866, he undertook a series of public readings in England and Scotland, with more the following year in England and Ireland. His books at this time were A Tale of Two Cities (1859) and Great Expectations (1861), both of which were resounding successes.

Item Date:  1861

Stock No:  42430      £4250

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