Recollections of Writers
Charles Dickens to Mary Cowden Clarke, 23 April 1860
London, 23rd April, 1860.
My dear Mrs. Cowden Clarke,—I lose no time
in acknowledging the receipt of your very welcome letter. I do so briefly—not
from choice but necessity. If I promised myself the pleasure of writing you a long
letter, it is highly probable that I should postpone it until heaven knows what
remote time of my life.
I hope to get two of the sonnets in
shortly; say within-a month or so.
The Ghost in the Picture-room, Miss
Procter—The Ghost in the Clock-room, a New Lady, who had very
rarely (if ever) tried her hand before—The Ghost in the Garden-room,
Mrs Gaskell.
Observe, my dear Concordance—because it makes the name of
my Gad’s Hill house all the better—the name is none of my giving; the
house has borne that name these eighty years—ever since it was a house.
Charles Cowden Clarke (1787-1877)
The schoolmate and friend of John Keats; he lectured on Shakespeare and European
literature and published
Recollections of Writers (1878).
Mary Victoria Cowden Clarke [née Novello] (1809-1898)
The daughter of the musician Vincent Novello, she married Charles Cowden Clarke in 1828
and wrote works on Shakespeare, including
The Complete Concordance to
Shakespeare (1845).
Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
English novelist, author of
David Copperfield and
Great Expectations.
Adelaide Anne Procter [Mary Berwick] (1825-1864)
The eldest child of Bryan Waller Procter; she contributed poetry to Dickens's periodicals
collected as
Legends and Lyrics (1858, 1861).
