DICKENS DECLINES TO READ A MANUSCRIPT

DICKENS (CHARLES, 1812-1870, novelist and actor) GOOD AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED ('Charles Dickens'), to an unnamed correspondent, refusing a request to read his manuscript, as he invariable does ('...I cannot serve you in reference to your book. I never read Manuscripts...') on the grounds that compliance with the large number of such demands on his time would leave no leisure for any other kind of occupation and pointing out that his opinion, even if favourable, would not be of service, because publishers prefer their own judgements; he adds in a footnote that in answering his anonymous letter at all he is deviating from a principle ('...I hold no person justified in adopting that most objectionable form of address, or entitled to a reply...'), 3 pages, octavo, two Chapman and Hall references at head,on black-edged stationery, Broadstairs, Kent, 13 September 1848

£950