Dickens, The Village Coquettes, 1836, first edition, original unbound sheets

DICKENS, CHARLES

The Village Coquettes: A Comic Opera. In Two Acts....the Music by John Hullah. London: Richard Bentley, 1836

8vo (230 x 141mm.), first edition, original unbound sheets, preserved in card folder inside green velvet-lined red morocco gilt box, upper lid of box detached

SCARCE FIRST EDITION OF DICKENS' COMIC OPERA, the writing of which is thought to have pre-dated The Strange Gentleman (see lots 39-41). The Village Coquettes opened on 6 December 1836, and there were cheers for Dickens at the curtain, although a certain young critic named John Forster thought that the libretto by Hullah "totally unworthy of Boz" (see Claire Tomalin, Dickens: a Life, p.72).

REFERENCE:

Eckel p 158; Gimbel A25