Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 June 1904 — Dickens' Name. [ARTICLE]

Dickens' Name.

A question having arisen in the Pall Mall Gazette as to the earliest authentic portrait of Charles Dickens, Mr. F. G. Kitton writes to that journal as follows: “I venture to say that the earliest presentment which bears the stamp of authenticity is the miniature on ivory painted by Mrs. Janet Barrow (nee Ross) in 1830. representing ‘Boz’ at the age of eighteen, with a high satin stock and wearing a coat with broad lapels such as was worn in the reign of William IV. Mrs. Barrow was an aunt of Dickens and great repute as a painter of miniatures. “With regard to the correct spelling of Dickens’ third baptismal name there is, I think, no doubt that 'Huffam’ is the accurate rendering. My authority is the late Robert Langton, who, in his carefully compiled work on ‘The Childhood and Youth of 'Charles Dickens,’ points out that the spelling of the name as ‘Huffham’ in the Portsea register of baptisms is incorrect—an assertion borne out by Forster's remark that on rare occasions Dickens himself wrote it without the second •h.’ ”