"I shall be glad to investigate the subject to which you so obligingly invite my attention, myself." - A 16 November 1868 autograph letter signed by Charles Dickens, accepting the invitation of a doctor to tour East London, a trip during which Dickens discovered and subsequently championed the newly-founded East London Children's Hospital Charles Dickens Other Ephemera,Other Signed & Inscribed

This is a 16 November 1868 autograph letter signed by Charles Dickens 18 months before his death to a London doctor, making arrangements to view a new children s hospital. Dickens would ultimately champion the hospital in print, helping raise funds for an eventual move. The letter is testimony that "At his death Dickens was regarded not simply as a great writer but also as a champion of the poor and downtrodden, who had striven hard throughout his whole career for greater social justice and a better, kinder world."The letter, entirely in Dickens's hand on the recto of a single sheet of his "Gad s Hill Place" stationery, is dated "Monday Sixteenth November, 1868" and written to "Dr. John Murray" (addressed as "Dear Sir" but identified in Dickens s hand at the lower left). The body of the letter reads: I shall be glad to investigate the subject to which you so obligingly invite my attention, myself. Would it suit your convenience to take me with you, next Saturday, to some of the places where you have been most impressed by what you have seen? If so, have the kindness to let me know at what hour on Saturday you will call for me at the office of "all the Year Round," 26 Wellington Street Strand. If you will make your own appointment, I will place myself at your disposal." The valediction, in two lines, reads: "Faithfully Yours" preceding the signature "Charles Dickens" with Dickens s characteristic succession of multiple underlining flourishes.The letter came to us framed from a private Dickens collection, and has been framed for no less than 32 years; the sealed verso of the frame features the sticker of autograph dealer Paul C. Richards, who died in 1993. The antique gilt wood frame measures 15.5 x 12.375 inches. The letter is double-matted to 6.5 x 4.5 inches in red over gilt beside and to the left of a photographic portrait of Dickens.Though his name is not uncommon in London, then or now, we speculate that the recipient may have been surgeon John Murray (1798-1873). What is clear from the letter is that Murray caught the attention of Dickens, that they met as planned, and that, as a result, Dickens was prompted to take an active supporting interest in the East London Hospital for Children, which had just been established that year in Ratcliffe Cross. In the 19 December issue of All the Year Round Dickens published an article in which he wrote at length, in evocative, Dickensian detail, about the Hospital: "Down by the river s bank in Ratcliffe my eyes rested on the inscription across the road, East London Children s Hospital. I went across and went straight in I found the Children s Hospital established in an old sail-loft or storehouse, of the roughest nature In its seven-and-thirty beds I saw but little beauty but I saw the sufferings both of infancy and childhood temporarily assuaged, I heard the patients answering to pet playful names, the light touch of a delicate lady laid bare the wasted sticks of arms for me to pity; and the claw-like little hands, as she did so, entwined themselves lovingly around her wedding-ring ."Prior to publication of his article, Dickens wrote again to Murray on the 1st of December specifically mentioning "my paper on the East London Children's Hospital" and informing Murray that he had sent a proof to the Hospital s founders.Dickens is credited for helping raise funds for the Hospital, which, after Dickens s death, facilitated the Hospital s 1875 move to a new building in Shadwell. The hospital endured, variously changing names and locations, until the Second World War.All the Year Round, from whose offices Dickens began his tour with Dr. Murray and whose pages Dickens used to advocate for the East London Children s Hospital, was a weekly literary journal edited by Dickens that began publishing in 1859 and, after his death, was edited by his son, Charles Dickens Jr.Sources: ODNB; NHS Trust; Free Library of Philadelphia