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Details
DICKENS, Charles. Sketches of Young Couples; with an Urgent Remonstrance to the Gentlemen of England (being Bachelors or Widowers), on the present Alarming Crisis. London: Chapman and Hall, 1840.
8o (155 x 103 mm). Frontispiece and five plates by Hablot K. Browne ["Phiz"]. (Lightly browned, a bit thumbed in places.) Original pictorial blue-green paper boards (backstrip renewed, extremities a bit scuffed, front inner hinge cracked); brown cloth folding case. Provenance: Kenyon Starling (bookplate).
"NEW IDEAS DESTRUCTIVE TO THE PEACE OF MANKIND" (Dickens).
FIRST EDITION, early issue with letter 't' in 'present' on the fifth line of p.8. A collection of humorous sketches, called by Johnson a "potboiler" for which Dickens received two hundred pounds, and which distracted him further from completing Barnaby Rudge, preceded by an "Urgent Remonstrance" which followed upon Queen Victoria's announcement: "It is my intention to ally myself in marriage with Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg and Gotha". Dickens points out that as 1840 is a "Bissextile, or Leap Year, in which it is held and considered lawful for any lady to offer and submit proposals of marriage to any gentleman... Her Majesty's said Most Gracious communication, [has] filled the heads of divers young ladies in this Realm with certain new ideas destructive to the peace of mankind, that never entered their imagination before." Eckel, p. 106; Yale/Gimbel B87.
8
"NEW IDEAS DESTRUCTIVE TO THE PEACE OF MANKIND" (Dickens).
FIRST EDITION, early issue with letter 't' in 'present' on the fifth line of p.8. A collection of humorous sketches, called by Johnson a "potboiler" for which Dickens received two hundred pounds, and which distracted him further from completing Barnaby Rudge, preceded by an "Urgent Remonstrance" which followed upon Queen Victoria's announcement: "It is my intention to ally myself in marriage with Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg and Gotha". Dickens points out that as 1840 is a "Bissextile, or Leap Year, in which it is held and considered lawful for any lady to offer and submit proposals of marriage to any gentleman... Her Majesty's said Most Gracious communication, [has] filled the heads of divers young ladies in this Realm with certain new ideas destructive to the peace of mankind, that never entered their imagination before." Eckel, p. 106; Yale/Gimbel B87.