Re: Hard Times
Charles Dickens (cdickens@RMPLC.CO.UK)
Tue, 1 Jul 1997 13:07:44 -0100
My dear Mrs McGinley-Salter,
Miss Coutts - the Baroness Burdett-Coutts as she was later to become - was
indeed a dear friend of mine. We worked together in seveal noble causes. I
like to think her wealth and my punctiliousness in matters of business
improved the lot of many a poor creature. "The Heart of Charles Dickens" -
not a title I was consulted over, I should say - is, I understand, a
collection of letters I wrote to Miss Coutts, edited by a Professor Johnson.
Most of the letters have now been republished in what is known as the
Pilgrim Edition of my letters. So many of my letters published, and I
wishing none had been! Eight volumes of the Pilgrim Edition have so far
been published, each at a price that would have kept a working man's family
in comfort for a year, in my day. I do not recommend you buy them,
therefore, but you may more easily find them in a library near to you, than
Professor Johnson's collection.
Miss Coutts's father was that intriguing gentleman Sir Francis Burdett, at
once a Reformer and a Tory. He deserves praise for managing to combine
these two roles. Your grandfather having been called George Francis Burdett
Attecheson Blackburn suggests there was a connection of some kind between
his parents and Sir Francis, but take care: the connection could have been
no more than admiration. I named most of my own childred after people I
admired, but my son Henry Fielding Dickens was not of course related to the
novelist.
Miss Coutts's vast fortune was founded chiefly upon Coutts's Bank, which
flourishes even today. You could do worse than make an inquiry to its
archives department. I feel sure it holds details of the Burdett-Coutts
family. Doubtless you are aware that the Baroness married late in life, and
died childless; also that her husband and several of his relations took the
surname of Burdett-Coutts.
Faithfully yours,
Charles Dickens
======================
Charles Dickens
charles_dickens@rmplc.co.uk
Author