Dickens, The Haunted Man, 1848, first edition, presentation copy inscribed to Haldimand

DICKENS, CHARLES

The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1848

8vo (165 x 103mm.), first edition, PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY DICKENS ON THE HALF-TITLE ("William Haldiman ... | With the cordial remembrance and regard | Charles Dickens | Twenty ninth March 1849"), advertisement leaf at the beginning, 17 illustrations including frontispiece and vignette title (by Leech, Stanfield, Tenniel and Stone, original deep red cloth decorated in blind, upper cover with gold Christmas wreath enclosing gilt lettering, spine lettered and decorated in gilt, yellow-coated endpapers, all edges gilt, preserved in cloth chemise and quarter red morocco velvet-lined folding box, upper hinge starting, spine slightly torn, some slight fading to lettering and decoration on upper cover, very slight browning to text

Dickens met the rich expatriate William Haldimand during his family's sojourn in Switzerland in 1846. Halidimand was the brother-in-law of the "Swiss gentleman" William de Cerjat, who became one of the author's lifelong friends and correspondents. This was a time of some mental anguish and frustration for Dickens, and he gained some relief by his reading of the first number of Dombey and Son to his new Lausanne friends, who included Cerjat and Haldimand, as well as the Hon. Richard Wilson of Rockingham Castle. The author named his seventh child Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens (1847--1872, a Royal navy officer).

The Haunted Man was published on 19 December 1848.

REFERENCE:

Smith II:9

PROVENANCE:

Comte Alain de Suzannet, bookplate (this copy not recorded in the catalogue for the sale of his collection at Sotheby's, 22 November 1971); Michael Sharpe, morocco book-label