Autograph Letter Signed ('T. Dibdin') from the playwright Thomas John Dibdin to G. B. Davidge, containing 'a List of the Patrons' who attending 'T. Dibdins Anniversary Dinner at Evans's Hotel | March 21st. 1838.'

2pp., 12mo. The letter is on the recto of the first leaf of the bifolium, with the list, in three columns, on the recto of the second. Fair, on lightly-aged paper. Dibdin reminds Davidge that at his 'first Anniversary Dinner' he expressed a great wish to serve Dibdin by his patronage, but that 'absence from Town' prevented him. 'The Company were so well pleas'd that each present sign'd a Paper to come again - it is now fix'd for my Birthday (the 21st. Inst) and I take the freedom of enclosing you a List of the Patrons in the Hope I may be allow'd to add yours and enclose you a Ticket'. The cost is 'One Guinea each Transferable - Half presented to me & for the other Half the Landlord gives a very good Dinner and a Bottle of Wine & Desert'. Dibdin invites Davidge's 'Commands', 'in Memory of Auld lang Syne' (Davidge was lessee of the Coburg and Surrey Theatres). The list names more than eighty individuals in alphabetical order, beginning with 'The Hon. Edd. Byng', and including 'Chas. Kemble Esqre', 'S. Sheridan Knowles Esq', 'Rt. Hon. Lord Tenterden', 'Rt. Hon. Earl Waldegrave' and three Members of Parliament.