Lot 4057

Description

Charles Dickens signature, on an envelope (approx 122x67mm) marked 'Private' and addressed to, 'Frederic Ouvry Esquire/66 Lincolns Inn Fields' all in Dickens' handwriting, on a display board featuring a coloured photo of Dickens with his signature and dated 1869, a coloured map and image of Dickens showing the location of his home in Lane Street, London, and a colour image of the cover of Dickens' book, A Christmas Carol, also a small metal plaque marked 'Charles Dickens/Feb. 7, 1812 - June 9, 1870', matted in five sections and timber framed under glass (approx 56x41cm). Extremely fine and scarce personally addressed envelope to Dickens' solicitor for his marriage separation.

The addressee of this envelope, Frederic Ouvry, was a friend and the solicitor for Charles Dickens when in 1858 he separated from Catherine Dickens, his wife of 22 years and mother of his ten children. Ouvry was a member of his brother-in-law's legal firm of Messrs Farrer's at 66 Lincoln's Inn Fields. In one of Dickens' novels, Bleak House, the sinister solicitor to the aristocracy, Mr Tulkinghorne, had his offices in Lincoln's Inn Fields which was the location for many legal firms. Charles Dickens also depicted his friend Frederic Ouvry as Mr Undery in another of his novels, Household Words.