5725. Charles Dickens to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 63.
6, Southwick Place, Hyde Park,
Monday, 12th March, 1866.
My dear Browning,
Will you dine here next Sunday at half-past six punctually, instead of with Forster? [1] I am going to read Thirty times, in London and elsewhere, and as I am coming out with “Doctor Marigold,” [2] I had written to ask Forster to come on Sunday [3] and hear me sketch him. Forster says (with his own boldness) that he is sure it would not bore you to have that taste of his quality after dinner. I should be delighted if this should prove true. But I give warning that in that case I shall exact a promise from you to come to St. James’s Hall one evening in April or May, and hear “David Copperfield,” [4] my own particular favourite.
Ever affectionately yours,
Charles Dickens.
Text: Dickens, 11,171.
1. At various times, depending on the status of their friendship, RB had a standing invitation at Forster’s for Sunday dinner.
2. “Doctor Marigold’s Prescriptions” was first published in the “extra Christmas number” of All the Year Round (1865), taking up the entire issue.
3. RB attended the dinner at Southwick Place, where Dickens gave a private performance of “Dr. Marigold’s Prescriptions.” Also present were “members of his family … Wilkie Collins, [Charles] Fechter, Forster, Arthur Chappell, [William] Kent, and [George] Dolby. Their verdict was unanimously favourable” (Dickens, 11, 181n–182n).
4. David Copperfield (1850).
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