The Earliest Obtainable Edition of this Dickens Farce, Offered in a Handsome Binding

IS SHE HIS WIFE? OR, SOMETHING SINGULAR.

DICKENS, CHARLES.

(Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1877). 123 x 85 mm. (4 3/4 x 3 1/4"). 80 pp., [4] leaves (ads). First American Edition.

VERY PLEASING GREEN MOROCCO BY RIVIERE & SONS (stamp-signed on front turn-in), covers framed with gilt rules, densely tooled cornerpieces with floral sprigs on a stippled ground, raised bands, spine panels lavishly gilt with a starburst of floral tools emanating from a central medallion, all on a stippled ground, gilt lettering, turn-ins gilt ruled with floral garlands at the corners, all edges gilt, original (very well-preserved) gilt cloth wrappers bound in at rear. Half-title with ink inscription: "Wm H. Drake / July 4, '83." Eckel, pp.159-61; Podeschi B-62. Spine just slightly sunned (though difficult to tell because of all the gilt), but a very fine copy in a gleaming, unworn binding and with only the most trivial imperfections internally.

Attractively bound by a major workshop, this is Dickens' third stage play, a one-act farce, heavy on confusion and coincidence, focusing on jealousy and misunderstandings between two married couples. Its stage run in 1837 coincided with a printed version of the play, but Eckel says that copies of this first edition no longer exist. The publisher of our edition, James Osgood, had acquired the sole surviving copy of the 1837 edition, which was subsequently lost in a fire in 1879. (There was also a London reprint of the play, published circa 1873, which Eckel tells us exists in only three known copies, the same number being verified by OCLC.) Given all this, the present Boston imprint is the first obtainable edition of this work. Our copy was handsomely bound by the celebrated Riviere firm, established by Robert Riviere in Bath in 1829. He later set up shop as in London in 1840; in 1881, he took his grandson Percival Calkin into partnership, at which time the firm became known as Riviere & Son. The bindery continued to do business until 1939, when it was acquired by George Bayntun of Bath. Rivere's work has consistently been of the highest standard throughout its long years of operation, and the present volume is no exception. (ST20685-8)

Price: $1,600.00