ALS signed “CD,” one page, 5 x 8, editorial letterhead from the periodical All the Year Round, November 2, 1859. Dickens writes to Alfred about the objection of a Mr. Howitt to an article referencing the Crimean War that had earlier appeared in the journal. In part: “The War Office ghost matter was not very intelligible … when I saw it in the papers. All that I know of it is this. Howitt (who is a kind of arch zapper among the zappers) wrote me a gossiping private note respecting some papers in these pages, called ‘A Physician’s Ghosts’: wherein the ghosts … are accounted for and I afford not to be real apparitions. To this accounting … Howitt (as said arch zapper of zappers) objected, and asked me ‘what I thought of the ghost of the officer killed in the Crimea, who had obliged the War Office, to alter an erroneous date entered in their books as the date of his death?’ I replied that what I thought if it was that I should require very strong evidence indeed in proof of the story. That’s all.” After signing, Dickens adds a postscript: “I ought to mention that Howitt afterward published his letter in a certain periodical curlpaper called the Spiritual Telegraph and described my answer.” In very good condition, with light scattered toning and soiling, light wrinkling, and folds (tiny edge separations, stabilized by professional reinforcment to entire reverse). COA John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and R&R COA.
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