THE MUDFOG PAPERS, ETC. BY CHARLES DICKENS
Reading edition
The papers contained in this little volume were written by Charles Dickens for the early numbers of “Bentley Miscellany.” The manuscripts of the two meetings of the Mudfog Association and of “Mr. Robert Bolton, the gentleman connected with the Press,” in my possession, are covered with corrections, erasures and additions. At that time Charles Dickens wrote a freer and bolder hand than he came to write in later years, and these manuscripts are easily decipherable.
Something perhaps of the comparative freedom of the handwriting of these sketches when set by the side of the manuscript of “Our Mutual Friend” may be owing to the quill pen, with whose exit has gone out much of that free and graceful penmanship of which Mr. Lupton reminds us that Thomas Tomkins of St. Paul’s School was so unrivalled a teacher.
GEORGE BENTLEY.
New Burlington Street, July 26th.