Sketches and Essays, now first collected by his Son

London : John Templeman, 1839
fcap. 8vo., cloth , first edition
n/a
1
English
7s. 6d.
S056.1k; V15.06; C083.06; HA683-57490
K2
Library, shelving over bookcases facing door, shelf 11, item 01
private collection

Charles Dickens's Copy of William Hazlitt's Sketches and Essays
[Charles Dickens]. William Hazlitt. Sketches and Essays. Now First Collected by His Son. London: John Templeman, 1839.

First edition. Small octavo (6.6875 x 4.25 inches; 170 x 105 mm.). [8], 361, [1, blank] pages plus 16-page publisher's catalogue.

Publisher's dark green diaper-grain cloth with covers decoratively panelled in blind and spine ruled in blind and lettered in gilt. Original pale yellow endpapers. All edges untrimmed. Expertly and almost invisibly rebacked, with most of the original spine laid down. Corners rubbed. Paper slightly browned and becoming brittle, with a few tiny chips to the fore-edge of the front free endpaper and half-title. Occasional light foxing. A very good copy. Chemised in a quarter dark green roan slipcase with spine lettered in gilt and with Dickens's crest in gilt on the front panel of the slipcase.

From the Library of Charles Dickens, with his bookplate and the June 1870 Gadshill Library sale book label ("From the Library of Charles Dickens, Gadshill Place, June, 1870") on the front pastedown. Early ink signature of M. G. Blythe at head of title. Armorial bookplate of Frederick S. Peck on the verso of the front free endpaper.

After Dickens's death on June 9, 1870, books from his library were sold and listed in Sotheran's "Price Current of Literature," giving a record of the books he then possessed. This was later edited by J. H. Stonehouse as Catalogue of the Library of Charles Dickens from Gadshill reprinted from Sotheran's 'Price Current of Literature' Nos. CLXXIV and CLXXV (London: 1935). "Every work has inside the cover a printed label (affixed immediately after his decease...and the greater proportion of the Books bear also his Bookplate with Crest." From the H. Barry Morris Collection.

Stonehouse, p. 56 (this copy).