Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Autograph letter signed ('Charles Dickens') to [Mrs Novello], 1 Devonshire Terrace, 13 November 1841
Two pages, 182 x 115mm, bifolium. Envelope. Provenance: Sotheby's, 16 December 1996, lot 142.

Dickens's ambition 'to be connected with the Truth of Truthful English Life': gratifying praise of his work – and a new pair of slippers before his American tour. 'My great ambition is to live in the hearts and homes of home-loving people, and to be connected with the Truth of Truthful English Life. A communication like yours give me greater pleasure ... than the most boisterous notes Fame could possibly blow out of her Trumpet'. That he has given pleasure to Mrs Novello's daughter is particularly gratifying: 'It is pleasant to repay a debt of gratitude, and I am among the crowd of bankrupts who owe her a very large one'. Mrs Novello had apparently sent Dickens the materials for a pair of slippers, which he has 'sent to be made up: and when I halt for the night in my half year's travels through America, I shall wear them; connecting those from whom they came with the most cheerful moments of my pilgrimage, and my recollections of my own hearth and images of those who sit about it' .

The recipient is Mary Novello, wife of the musician and publisher Vincent Novello. The daughter referred to is most likely the acclaimed soprano Clara Novello (1818-1908); the Novellos' eldest daughter, Mary (later Mary Cowden Clarke) became a friend of Dickens's later in the 1840s.