FIRST EDITION OF DICKENS' FINAL CHRISTMAS BOOK: THE HAUNTED MAN AND THE GHOST'S BARGAIN

DICKENS, Charles. The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain. London: Bradbury & Evans, 1848. 12mo, original red cloth gilt. Housed in custom chemise and slipcase. $1700.

First edition, variant binding, of Dickens' last Christmas book. A lovely copy.

At the time Dickens began The Haunted Man, his last Christmas book, it was only a month since his sister Fanny had died of consumption. "The Haunted Man is concerned with the power of memory, with family life which is destroyed and replaced only by the wretched anxieties of a distinguished but solitary man; it is a story in which the central character's mournfulness is linked closely with the death of a beloved sister. It is a strange and powerful book in which memories 'come back to me in music, in the wind, in the dead stillness of the night, in the revolving years.' The theme itself revolves around Dickens' belief that memory is a softening and chastening power, that the recollection of old suffering and old wrongs can be used to touch the heart and elicit sympathy with the sufferings of others. In his autobiographical fragment he had written of his parents' apparent neglect only to add that 'I do not write resentfully or angrily, for I know how all of these things have worked together to make me what I am.' Now, in the last words of this Christmas book he was writing, he put it another way: 'Lord, keep my memory green…'" (Ackroyd, Dickens, 553). With engraved frontispiece and additional title on toned grounds by Martin & Corbould after John Tenniel and 15 wood-engraved illustrations after Tenniel, Clarkson Stanfield, Frank Stone, and John Leech. First printing, variant binding. This variant binding is identical to the usual binding except that its double-ruled blindstamping differs from the floral design usually found. It also was not bound with the advertising leaf preceding the frontispiece that is called for. Eckel, 121. Smith 9. Gimbel A119. Bookplates.

Faint darkening to cloth. A lovely, about-fine copy.