We have been able to procure so few early letters of any general
interest that we put these first years together. Charles Dickens was
then living, as a bachelor, in Furnival's Inn, and was engaged as a
parliamentary reporter on _The Morning Chronicle_. The "Sketches by Boz"
were written during these years, published first in "The Monthly
Magazine" and continued in _The Evening Chronicle_. He was engaged to be
married to Catherine Hogarth in 1835--the marriage took place on the 2nd
April, 1836; and he continued to live in Furnival's Inn with his wife
for more than a year after their marriage. They passed the summer months
of that year in a lodging at Chalk, near Gravesend, in the neighbourhood
associated with all his life, from his childhood to his death. The two
letters which we publish, addressed to his wife as Miss Hogarth, have no
date, but were written in 1835. The first of the two refers to the offer
made to him by Chapman and Hall to edit a monthly periodical, the
emolument (which he calls "too tempting to resist!") to be fourteen
pounds a month. The bargain was concluded, and this was the starting of
"The Pickwick Papers." The first number was published in March, 1836.
The second letter to Miss Hogarth was written after he had completed
three numbers of "Pickwick," and the character who is to "make a decided
hit" is "Jingle."
The first letter of this book is addressed to Henry Austin, a friend
from his boyhood, who afterwards married his second sister Letitia. It
bears no date, but must have been written in 1833 or 1834, during the
early days of his reporting for _The Morning Chronicle_; the journey on
which he was "ordered" being for that paper.
[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]