The papers contained in this little volume were written by Charles
Dickens for the early numbers of “Bentley Miscellany.” The
manuscripts of the two meetings of the Mudfog Association and of “Mr.
Robert Bolton, the gentleman connected with the Press,” in my
possession, are covered with corrections, erasures and additions. At
that time Charles Dickens wrote a freer and bolder hand than he came
to write in later years, and these manuscripts are easily
decipherable.
Something perhaps of the comparative freedom of the handwriting of
these sketches when set by the side of the manuscript of “Our Mutual
Friend” may be owing to the quill pen, with whose exit has gone out
much of that free and graceful penmanship of which Mr. Lupton reminds
us that Thomas Tomkins of St. Paul’s School was so unrivalled a
teacher.