DICKENS, Charles (1812-1870). Novelist.
Autograph Letter (third person) to Mr Winckworth (of Winckworth Silver & Co.), 1 page 8vo with blank leaf (bearing remains of old mounting), Tavistock House, 3 October 1853. Ordering medicines for his forthcoming trip to the Continent with Wilkie Collins and Augustus Egg.

'... 'Mr: Charles Dickens begs Mr Winckworth to be so good as to fill the accompanying case of bottles; one with laudanum, one with sal volatile, and one with the best powdered ginger. He also begs to have a large box - as it is to travel with, it should be strong - of the pills according to Dr Southwood Smith's prescription which is in Mr Winckworth's possession. / Tavistock House / Monday Third October 1853.'

See The Letters of Charles Dickens, Pilgrim Edition, vol. 7 page 158, where this letter is noticed from a catalogue description (Sotheby's July 1978) and it is noted that Winckworth Silver & Co. were an 'emigrants fitting out warehouse'. A further note indicates that the laudanum was 'no doubt for Collins, who suffered from neuralgia and rheumatism'. The Wilkie Collins scholar Andrew Gasson has also noted that Collins took opium from the early 1860s ('to alleviate the symptoms of gout and rheumatic pain'). By the end of the decade Collins was, however, attempting to give it up.
 (Thomas) Southwood Smith (1788-1861) was a unitarian minister and physician.
[No: 24795]