DICKENS AND SEYMOUR
Sir,-On page 8 of your issue for July 27 under heading "Birth of a Notion" it is stated that "Dickens was paid to illustrate Seymour ... but when Seymour died Dickens rapidly freed himself from the first conception of the Nimrod Club." Reference to Forster’s Life of Dickens, and to the introduction by Charles Dickens the younger, to a reprint of the First Edition of Pickwick, Chapman and Hall, 1911, shows that Dickens certainly did not illustrate Seymour, as the proposal that he do so was rejected by him. The widow of Seymour . made
such a claim and this was repeated by her son. Dickens writing’ in 1866 said: "Mr. Seymour the artist never originated, suggested or in any way had to do with, save as an illustrator of what I devised, an incident, a character (except the sporting tastes of Mr. Winkle), a name, a phrase, a word to be found in the Pickwick Papers." This, even apart from other available evidence, conclusively proves that Dickens did not "illustrate Seymour.’ You are ceftainly right in saying that "with the introduction of Sam Weller the series became a stupendous success," but this had no connection with any reaction of Dickens to the change of artists as your commentator implies.
R. L.
ANDREW
(Kelburn),
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 321, 17 August 1945, Page 5
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215DICKENS AND SEYMOUR New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 321, 17 August 1945, Page 5
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