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Charles Dickens

Madeline House and Graham Storey (eds), The British Academy/The Pilgrim Edition of the Letters of Charles Dickens, Vol. 1: 1820–1839

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To J. P. HARLEY, DECEMBER 1836

Facsimile in Parke-Bernet Galleries catalogue, Apr 1941. Date: This dedication, as printed in The Village Coquettes, is dated 15 Dec—the day on which Bentley first advertised the book as "ready". CD presumably wrote it shortly before.

DEDICATION

TO J. P. HARLEY ESQRE.

December 1836.

My Dear Sir.

My dramatic bantlings are no sooner born, than you father them. You have made my strange gentleman exclusively your own; you have adopted Martin Stokes with equal readiness, and you still profess your willingness to do the same kind office for all future scions of the same stock, no matter how numerous they may be or how quickly they may follow in succession.

I dedicate to you, the first play I ever published; and you made for me, the first play I ever wrote. The balance is in your favor, and I am afraid it will remain so.

That you may long contribute to the amusement of the Public, and long be spared to shed a lustre, by the honor and integrity of your private life, on the profession which for many years, you have done so much to uphold, is the sincere and earnest wish of

  • My Dear Sir
  •    Yours most Faithfully
  •                                   Boz

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