DICKENS (CHARLES) Autograph letter signed ('Charles Dickens') to Rev. G.R. Gleig ('My Dear Gleig'), sending a cheque for a story and inviting Gleig's protégé (Amelia Edwards) to write for the Christmas number ('...It is our custom here at this time of the year, to invite all our best contributors to write...'), explaining '...any story... whether narrated in the first person, or the third; whether referring to time present, or time past; whether ghostly or otherwise. No reference to the Christmas season is in the least necessary - on the contrary, such reference is not desired...', ending by assuring him that it would be a '...good opportunity for an aspirant... very well paid for...' and that she would have a good chance of getting it accepted ('...I will deal as tenderly with it as if were my own...'), headed notepaper of Office of All the Year Road, 2 pages on a separated bifolium, dust-staining and discolouration, creased at folds, remains of tape where previously mounted, 8vo (197 x 128mm.), Wellington Street, W.C., 13 September 1861 Footnotes: 'A GOOD OPPORTUNITY FOR AN ASPIRANT': DICKENS ENCOURAGES AMELIA EDWARDS TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE CHRISTMAS NUMBER OF ALL THE YEAR ROUND. Described by Dickens in a letter to Thomas Heaphy two days after ours as 'a gentleman of distinguished position, both literary and social', George Robert Gleig (1796-1888), author and Chaplain-General of the armed forces from 1844-1875, here acts as an intermediary between Dickens and the author Amelia Edwards (1831-1892). Gleig had approached him in July with an introduction, and Dickens responded that he would be delighted to 'find promise in a new aspirant' and agreed to read her ghost story (3 July 1861, Dickens Letters Project online). He commented in a letter of 31 August to W.H. Wills that he found the first of her four ghost stories 'remarkably good and original' but that he 'nearly rewrote them all', referring to her as 'Gleig's fair friend'. Far from being a young ingénue as is perhaps implied here, Gleig's 'protégé' had already contributed many stories and articles to periodicals such as Eliza Cooke's Journal, and published her first novel, My Brother's Wife in 1855. Her ghost story 'The Phantom Coach' is the most anthologised of her works, and she became a prolific author and contributor to All the Year Round, Household Words and Saturday Review. She is primarily remembered, however, for her travel writing on Egypt and for co-founding the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1882, earning her the soubriquet 'The Godmother of Egyptology'. Our letter is published in the Pilgrim edition of Charles Dickens' letters, Vol.9, p.455. Provenance: Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 30 April 1950, lot 187 (part). This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: * * VAT on imported items at a preferential rate of 5% on Hammer Price and the prevailing rate on Buyer's Premium. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing