34
34 DICKENS, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. London: Chapman and Hall, 1839 Presentation copy to an english radical First edition, presentation copy to the radical political journalist Albany William Fonblanque, with an autograph letter signed from Dickens tipped-in, and in the publisher’s deluxe binding, as used for presentation copies. Nicholas Nickleby was one of the most politically pointed of Dickens’s novels, written at the end of a turbulent decade, in which the Reform Act and Poor Law Amendment Act had led to widespread unemployment and depression, and published in the year of the first Chartist uprising at Newport, making this a particularly compelling association. The letter, dated 14 November and headed from Dickens’s Doughty Street address, reads: “My Dear Sir, Do me the favor [ sic ] to accept a copy of Nickleby, and with it the assurances of my warm regards and admiration. I shall be removing in the course of a few weeks nearer to your neighbourhood – Devonshire Terrace, York Gate – and when this comes to pass, I cherish the hope of seeing you more frequently. Believe me always my dear sir faithfully yours Charles Dickens”. Fonblanque’s signature is on the front free endpaper.
Fonblanque had risen to prominence as a major voice of English radicalism, inspired by Owenite ideals. “He was strongly opposed to the aristocratic principle, a fierce champion of suffrage extension, and thus a leading supporter of the 1832 Reform Bill. John Stuart Mill commented on ‘the ardour of his sympathy with the hard-handed many’ and praised his ‘verve and talent, as well as fine wit’ . . . Thomas Carlyle, from a different political perspective, considered that Fonblanque’s journalism made him ‘the cleverest man living of that craft at present’” ( ODNB ). During the 1830s, his radicalism eased, and he moved closer to mainstream whiggism in his subsequent journalism, though he remained esteemed and feared for his force and wit. Dickens met Fonblanque through an introduction from his friend and future biographer John Forster. The pair thereafter moved in similar circles; Fonblanque attended Dickens’s dinner parties, and they yachted together. Fonblanque later wrote political leaders for Dickens’s newspaper the Daily News . The publishers offered the finished novel in three binding options at varying costs, in cloth, half morocco, and the present full morocco. Other presentation copies we have traced were also in the deluxe full morocco binding. Octavo. Original green morocco, spine lettered in gilt, spine bands tooled in blind, concentric blind panelling to covers, blind turn-ins, yellow endpapers, gilt edges. Housed in a red cloth chemise and half morocco box by Bayntun. Engraved portrait of Dickens after D. Maclise with facsimile
ONLY CONNECT
28
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter maker