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81. DICKENS, Charles and COLLINS, Wilkie. The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices [and] No Thotoughfare [and] The Perils of Certains English Prisoners. Chapman and Hall. 1890.
£98
8vo., original green cloth, lettered in gilt on spine. With illustrations by Arthur Layard. A little rubbing to joints with a small split at head of upper joint, a few pin holes to front-free endpaper, bookplate, otherwise a very good copy.
First edition of these three stories which had originally appeared in Household Words.
82. DICKENS, Charles Sikes and Nancy.A Reading by Charles Dickens. Henry Sotheran & Co. 1921.
£148
8vo., original cloth with paper label on spine; pp. frontispiece + xii + 57 + [i] advertisement. A very good, unopened copy.
Limited edition of 275 numbered copies signed “H. Sotheran & Co.,” by John Harrison Stonehouse who wrote an introduction and general bibliography of the Reading editions for the volume. This is a reprint from the copy of the privately printed edition [C. Whiting 1868-69], formerly in the collection of Sir Henry Irving.
Dickens made twenty-two selections from his own writings for Readings on the Public Platform, although four were never performed. His Reading of Sikes and Nancy was the last and most sensational selection he made, and confirmed Dickens’ standing as one of the most famous actors of his day. The frontispiece shows Dickens impersonating Nancy and Fagin during a performance of the Reading.
83. DICKENS, Charles David Copperfield. A Reading, in five chapters by Charles Dickens. Henry Sotheran & Co. 1921.
£148
8vo., original cloth with paper label on spine;
pp.frontispiece + xvi + 104 + [i] advertisement. A little browning to free-end papers, otherwise a very good copy.
Limited edition of 275 numbered copies signed “H. Sotheran & Co.,” by John Harrison Stonehouse who wrote an introduction and note on the romantic history of Charles Dickens and Maria Beadnell for this volume. This is a reprint from a copy of the privately printed edition of the 1860’s of which only a very small number were printed.
Dickens made twenty-two selections from his own writings for Readings on the Public Platform, although four were never performed.
The frontispiece shows a portrait of “Mrs Winter. Formerly Miss Maria
Beadnell: the bethrothed of Charles Dickens, 1830-33; the Dora of David Copperfield and the Flora of Little Dorrit.”
SPECIALLY BOUND FOR SIMPSON’S ON THE STRAND RESTAURANT
84. DICKENS, Charles. Great Expectations. Collins Clear Type Press. [c 1930].
£148
8vo., in full burgundy morocco, lettered in gilt on spine, top edge gilt, illustrated by A.A. Dixon. With the flaps from the original glassine wrapper listing books in the Collins’ Illustrated Pocket Classics series, preserved in original card box. A little cockling to a couple of pages otherwise a near fine copy.
Collins’ Illustrated Pocket Classics, this copy one of a small unnoted 85
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number, specially bound in full morocco for Simpson’s Restaurant on the Strand, with a gilt block of Charles Dickens’s signature on upper board below the caption in gilt “With Best Wishes for Christmas 1931 from the Manager of Simpson’s Restaurant, Strand, which was patronised daily in 1859 by Charles Dickens”.
Also inscribed on thr front free endpaper by the Manager of the restaurant Fred Heck, “To Miss Nightingale, with the heartiest of greetings for the New Year 1946, from Fred Heck, 27/12/1945.” Fred Heck worked at Simpson’s on the Strand for 55 years, 40 of them as manager. He died in 1959 after reportedly “ having consumed a heavy luncheon”.
During the war Simpson’s was severely hit by the shortage of butchers’ meat, their celebrated sirloins of beef and saddles of mutton disappearing from the trolleys, not to be seen again in their full glory until long after the end of the war, as Britain remained on rations until 1954. Partial relief came with an agreement with Cameron of Lochiel to supply his venison from Scotland, as well as herrings for smoking. Simpson’s, like all luxury restaurants, was included in the wartime rule imposing a five shilling limit on the price of a restaurant meal.
85. DICKENS, Charles (author). Francis D. BEDFORD (illustrator). The Cricket On The Hearth; A Fairy Tale of Home. London; Frederick Warne & Co., Ltd., circa 1943.
£78
8vo. Original honey-coloured cloth lettered in dark blue, preserved in pictorial dustwrapper; pp. [iv], v-viii + 182; with 8 beautiful coloured plates by Francis Bedford and line-drawings throughout; a fine copy lightly stamped by the publisher “Property Room” to the front free endpaper; the unclipped dustwrapper (6/-) with considerable dusting to both panels, but otherwise unworn.
Early edition illustrated thus.
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