DICKENS MANUSCRIPTS STOLEN

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 286, 29 August 1931, Page 23

DICKENS MANUSCRIPTS STOLEN

Discovery and Arrest The Dickens letters—one of England’s mos priceless possessions—were recently stolen. The letters, which include some from the pens of Queeu Victoria, Disraeli, Gladstone, Carlyle, Thackeray, Victor Hugo, and George Meredith, vanished from a safe at Dickens House, the headquarters of the Dickens Fellowship in Bloomfebury. There were indications that they were stolen one by. one since last January. Most of the papers cover the period from 1839 to 1857. Included among them is the original preface to “Dombey and Son.” The “Sunday Chronicle” states that the theft was discovered when an official went to take the collection out of the safe place in which it was kept. Scotland Yard officers travelled from London by fast car, and at 3 a.m. arrested a man who is stated to have arrived from London by train shortly after midnight. The arrest followed an extensive search for trace of the letters.