come to the conclusion that up to
the age of twenty Dickens was entirely fancy-free. It was left to an
American to disclose the fact that this was not the case, but that even
in his teens he had been captivated by a girl of about his own age.

Inasmuch as the only reproach that was ever made against Dickens was
based upon his love-affairs, let us go back and trace them from this
early one to the very last, which must yet for some years, at least,
remain a mystery.

Everything that is known about his first affair is contained in a book
very beautifully printed, but inaccessible to most readers. Some years
ago Mr. William K. Bixby, of St. Louis, found in London a collector of
curios. This man had in his stock a number of letters which had passed
between a Miss Maria Beadnell and Charles Dickens when the two were
about nineteen and a second package of letters representing a later
acquaintance, about 1855, at which time Miss Beadnell had been married
for a long time to a Mr. Henry Louis Winter, of 12 Artillery Place,
London.

The copyright laws of Great Britain would not allow Mr. Bixby to
publish the letters in that country, and he did not care to give them
to the public here. Therefore, he presented them to the Bibliophile
Society, with the understanding that four hundred and ninety-three
copies, with the Bibliophile book-plate, were to be printed and
distributed among the members of the society. A few additional copies
were struck off, but these did not bear the Bibliophile book-plate.
Only two copies are available for other readers, and to peruse these it
is necessary to visit the Congressional Library in Washington, where
they were placed on July 24, 1908.

These letters form two series--the first written to Miss Beadnell in or
about 1829, and the second written to Mrs. Winter, formerly Miss
Beadnell, in 1855.

The book also contains an introduction by Henry H. Harper, who sets
forth some theories which the facts, in my opinion, do not support; and
there are a number of interesting portraits, especially one of Miss
Beadnell in 1829--a lovely girl with dark curls. Another shows her in
1855, when she writes of herself as "old and fat"--thereby doing
herself a great deal of injustice; for although she had lost her
youthful beauty, she was a very presentable woman of middle age, but
one who would not be particularly noticed in any company.

Summing up briefly these different letters, it may be said that in the
fir