187

Charles Dickens

Autograph Letter Signed,

to accountant and writer Joseph Charles Parkinson ("My Dear Parkinson"), agreeing to publish whatever he chose to write about his trip to the [Middle] East, and remarking that it was necessary to make revisions to his article due to lack of space ["Riding for Health," All the Year Round, 9 October 1869]. 1½ pages, 8vo, "Office of All the Year Round" stationery, written on two sheets; faint marginal discoloration from prior matting, second page trimmed (now 3¼x5 inches, but not affecting text), versos silked, remnants of hinging at upper edges verso.

London, 23 September 1869.

  • Notes: "I will with the greatest pleasure take whatever you may see your way to writing, out in the East. . . . I shall have perfect confidence in you. . . . We know enough of one another to be sure that we will both make the best of these conditions . . . .
    ". . . I have been compelled slightly to abbreviate the Velocipede article. I have done this chiefly with reference to the Doctor. All that you wrote about him is substantially there, but not literally. "I heartily wish you a pleasant and safe journey. . . ."

    Before he could publish Parkinson's articles, Dickens died the year after signing the present letter. Dickens's eldest son, who resumed editorship of All the Year Round, carried out his father's promise to Parkinson by publishing the articles ("Six Months in the East") in the November and December issues of 1870 (see Litvack and Craig's "Charles Dickens and Joseph Parkinson," Dickens Quarterly 35, no. 4 [2018]: 303-49). Published in Graham Storey et al., eds., The Letters of Charles Dickens, Pilgrim Edition (Oxford: Clarendon, 1965–2002), 12: 412.
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