We intend this Collection of Letters to be a Supplement to the "Life of
Charles Dickens," by John Forster. That work, perfect and exhaustive as
a biography, is only incomplete as regards correspondence; the scheme of
the book having made it impossible to include in its space any letters,
or hardly any, besides those addressed to Mr. Forster. As no man ever
expressed _himself_ more in his letters than Charles Dickens, we believe
that in publishing this careful selection from his general
correspondence we shall be supplying a want which has been universally
felt.
Our request for the loan of letters was so promptly and fully responded
to, that we have been provided with more than sufficient material for
our work. By arranging the letters in chronological order, we find that
they very frequently explain themselves and form a narrative of the
events of each year. Our collection dates from 1833, the commencement of
Charles Dickens's literary life, just before the starting of the
"Pickwick Papers," and is carried on up to the day before his death, in
1870.
We find some difficulty in being quite accurate in the arrangements of
letters up to the end of 1839, for he had a careless habit in those days
about dating his letters, very frequently putting only the day of the
week on which he wrote, curiously in contrast with the habit of his
later life, when his dates were always of the very fullest.
A blank is made in Charles Dickens's correspondence with his family by
the absence of any letter addressed to his daughter Kate (Mrs.
Perugini), to her great regret and to ours. In 1873, her furniture and
other possessions were stored in the warehouse of the Pantechnicon at
the time of the great fire there. All her property was destroyed, and,
among other things, a box of papers which included her letters from her
father.
It was our intention as well as our desire to have thanked,
individually, every one--both living friends and representatives of dead
ones--for their readiness to give us every possible help to make our
work complete. But the number of such friends, besides correspondents
hitherto unknown, who have volunteered contributions of letters, make it
impossible in our space to do otherwise than to express, collectively,
our earnest and heartfelt thanks.
A separate word of gratitude, however, must be given by us to Mr. Wilkie
Collins for the invaluable help which we have received from his great
knowledge and experience, in the technical part of our work, and for
the deep interest which he has shown from the beginning, in our
undertaking.
It is a great pleasure to us to have the name of Henry Fielding Dickens
associated with this book. To him, for the very important assistance he
has given in making our Index, we return our loving thanks.
In writing our explanatory notes we have, we hope, left nothing out
which in any way requires explanation from us. But we have purposely
made them as short as possible; our great desire being to give to the
public another book from Charles Dickens's own hands--as it were, a
portrait of himself by himself.
Those letters which need no explanation--and of those we have many--we
give without a word from us.
In publishing the more private letters, we do so with the view of
showing him in his homely, domestic life--of showing how in the midst of
his own constant and arduous work, no household matter was considered
too trivial to claim his care and attention. He would take as much pains
about the hanging of a picture, the choosing of furniture, the
superintending any little improvement in the house, as he would about
the more serious business of his life; thus carrying out to the very
letter his favourite motto of "What is worth doing at all is worth doing
well."
MAMIE DICKENS.
GEORGINA HOGARTH.
LONDON: _October_, 1879.