Four hitherto unpublished letters now at the British Library Manuscripts Department reveal an unnoted association between George Henry Lewes (1817–1878) and Thomas James Serle (1798–1889). 1 Lewes who was just twenty-four years old, when he wrote the first of these letters, was already known in some influential London literary circles. 2 London theatres often used translated French plays, and one of Lewes’s assets both in the theatre and as a periodical contributor was his fluency in French, a language he knew from attending boarding-school in Jersey. 3 Thomas James Serle is today an obscure Victorian figure. As Actor-Manager of Covent Garden in 1838–39, he worked closely with Macready and others at Drury...