Description
“NEW YEARS DAY 1842”: INSCRIBED PRESENTATION FIRST EDITION OF DICKENS’ BARNABY RUDGE
DICKENS, Charles. Barnaby Rudge; A Tale of the Riots of ‘Eighty. London: Chapman and Hall, 1841. Large octavo, early 20th-century full red morocco expertly rebacked with original elaborately gilt-decorated spine neatly laid down, raised bands, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt; pp. vi, [229]-306; [1]-426. Housed in a custom leather-edged slipcase.
Very rare presentation copy of the first separate edition, boldly inscribed by Dickens on the title page only two weeks after publication: “Mrs. Smithson / From Charles Dickens / New Years Day 1842.” Sumptuously bound in full red morocco gilt by Riviere & Son.
The recipient was Elizabeth Smithson, the wife of Charles Smithson, partner of Dickens’ close friend and lawyer Thomas Mitton, and a personal friend of Dickens as well. The Dickens and Smithson families vacationed together at the seaside resort of Broadstairs during the summers of 1841 and 1842. Dickens described them as “the jolliest of the jolly, keeping a big old country house, with an ale cellar something larger than a reasonable church… we performed some madnesses there… when the moon was shining, that would have gone to your heart, and as Mr. Weller says, ‘come out on the other side'” (Johnson, Charles Dickens, 457). Dickens wrote to Smithson shortly after the publication of Barnaby Rudge on December 15, “Ease my mind and ask Mrs. Smithson to ease it on the subject of my liabilities. I am going to send her two books, and will remit, if you or she will put me in a condition to do so.” On New Years’ Day he wrote to Mrs. Smithson sending fondest regards and asking her “to accept the inclosed for my poor sake,” referring particularly to The Old Curiosity Shop but as evidenced from the previous letter and the date of the inscription also referring to this copy of Barnaby Rudge. He subsequently inscribed a copy of Christmas Carol to Mrs. Smithson.
Barnaby Rudge took over five years for Dickens to complete and centered around the civil riots of 1780. “He had always been interested in the historical essence of London, that deeply imbued spirit of dirt and misery with which he could bind his own past to that of the city itself, and in these first weeks of composing Barnaby Rudge he visited ‘the most wretched and distressful streets’ to find images which could move him… To all these scenes and characters he imparts a dream-like quality, London itself becoming ‘a mere dark mist—a giant phantom in the air.’ The narrative itself is marked by references to ghosts, dreams, phantoms, as if Dickens’ own private material was so deeply implicated in the unfolding of the story that he wished to keep it somewhat remote… Dickens continued to compose the story which had been with him so long; a proper novel this time, far more carefully planned than its predecessors, a novel that with its historical sweep might rival comparisons with the works of Scott and which in its depiction of the revolutionary mob would be an attempt to create a quite new effect in English fiction” (Ackroyd, 328). With in-text wood-engraved illustrations by George Cattermole and Hablot K. Browne (“Phiz”). Originally published with The Old Curiosity Shop in 1840-41 as Master Humphrey’s Clock, this first separate edition of Barnaby Rudge was published December 15, 1841. Smith 6B. Gimbel A63. Eckel, 68. Bookplate.
Paper slightly brittle, with consequent short closed tears and repairs, chiefly marginal though touching some letters, on initial pages 240-41, and latter pages 255-66; closed tear across text on initial pages 263-64 and latter pages 261-66. Very minor scuffs to corners and bands. A very handsome copy in near-fine condition, quite rare and desirable inscribed.
