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rsdsharp

(10,420 posts)
2. Dickens payment is wildly misleading.
Sat Dec 16, 2023, 07:45 PM
Dec 2023

It assumes a pound to dollar exchange rate of 1.25/1. During much of the 19th century, including the 1840s, the exchange rate was about 5/1. That makes Dickens payment $685, not $137. Adjusted for inflation, that would be nearly $28,500. Not a fortune, to be sure, but the initial printing was only 6000 copies; an author’s payment of about $4.75 per copy.

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