Translated by Howitt from a Swedish story called ‘Den Rätta’ by Swedish feminist writer Fredrika Bremer (1801-65), 'The Right One' was promptly translated back into Swedish after its publication in Household Words and published in a newspaper under Dickens’s name. See H. K. Riikonen, ‘Dickens’s Reception in Finland’ in Michael Hollington (ed.) The Reception of Charles Dickens in Europe, 2 vols. (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), II, p. 389. Such confusions were not uncommon. Dickens appears not to have been aware of the story's origins or subsequent embarrassing history; writing to Wills regarding the proof, he merely notes the story is ‘poor—but I think just passable’ (Letters 6, 447n.).
