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Lot 62
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Charles Dickens ALS mentioning Edwin Booth, brother of Lincoln's assassin
Charles Dickens ALS mentioning Edwin Booth, brother of Lincoln's assassin
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Description:

Dickens Charles 1812 - 1870 Charles Dickens ALS mentions Edwin Booth, brother of Lincoln's assassin.

Single page ALS, 4.5" x 7" on stationary letterhead of Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent. Dated "tenth September 1869" and signed by Dickens as "Charles Dickens" with the most extensive 8 line penned flourish we have seen. Pale tape ghosts to left edge, else near fine.

A lovely example of a letter by Dickens, penned only a year before his death, and with a reference to Edwin Booth, the leading Shakespearean actor of the time. The letter is shown in full below:

"Saturday tenth September 1869

Dear Mrs Dallas

In writing to you last, I assumed the contents of the (illegible) letter, where just what they are. It seems one intended to leave nothing open on Mr Booths behalf.

...always,

Charles Dickens

Sunday. I have received the finalized copy of your letter to Mr Pugh, since writing the above. I trust you are better in health".

Dickens mentions Mr. Booth (Edwin Booth), a foremost 19th century American actor who toured throughout America and the major capitals of Europe, performing Shakespearean plays. In 1869 he founded Booth's Theatre in New York, a spectacular theatre that was quite modern for its time. Some theatrical historians consider him the greatest American actor, and the greatest Prince Hamlet, of the 19th century.

There are numerous letters, correspondences and references of admiration that existed between Edwin Booth and Charles Dickens, including letters showing Dickens referring to him as a gentleman of "great zeal and energy" and others referencing that he (Dickens) is "sure from my experience that his (Booth's) charges will be correct, will you kindly inform him without waiting for my receipt of his promised communication - that you are ready to pay them on my account, if he will let you know their amount?"

There is also documentation that Dickens had negotiated directly with Booth on behalf of Lytton in 1869 (the year of this letter), for a possible New York production of Lytton's The Rightful Heir.

Dicken's love of Shakespeare cannot be overstated. He was so enamored with his plays and used to declare his firm belief that Shakespeare was especially fond of Kent, and that the poet chose Gad's Hill and Rochester for the scenery of his plays from intimate personal knowledge of their localities. He said he had no manner of doubt but that one of Shakespeare's haunts was the old inn at Rochester, and that this conviction came forcibly upon him one night as he was walking that way, and discovered Charles's Wain over the chimney just as Shakespeare has described it, in words put into the mouth of the carrier in King Henry the Fourth. There is no prettier place than Gad's Hill in all England for the earliest and latest flowers, and Dickens chose it, when he had arrived at the fulness of his fame and prosperity, as the home in which he most wished to spend the remainder of his days. When a boy, he would often pass the house with his father, and frequently said to him, "If ever I have a dwelling of my own, Gad's Hill Place is the house I mean to buy." In that beautiful retreat he has for many years been accustomed to welcome his friends, and find relaxation from the crowded life of London.

A fantastic example of a Charles Dickens ALS in the last year of his life. Penned from his home at Gad's Hill where he felt a shared love with Shakespeare for the spectacular countryside. With a special reference to Edwin Booth.

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