Dickens, Charles

8vo (203 x 133 mm), first book edition, dedication copy inscribed by Dickens on the dedication page in month of publication to his long-lasting friend and collaborator Mark Lemon ("Mark Lemon | From | Charles dickens | Third October 1853"), engraved frontispiece, additional engraved title and 38 plates (including 10 atmospheric "dark" plates) by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"), bound without half-title, modern blue morocco gilt by Bayntun of Bath, gilt portrait of Dickens in oval on upper cover, facsimile signature in gilt on lower cover, spine in six compartments, all edges gilt, gilt dentelles and turn-ins,  preserved in matching blue cloth slipcase

Mark Lemon, editor of Punch, playwright and actor, presentation inscription by the author; Kenyon Starling, book-label; William E. Self, book-label, sale at Christie's New York of "The William E. Self Family Collection, Part 1", 2 April 2008, lot 146

Smith I:10

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A major Dickens presentation copy of one of his most enduring and most important works, inscribed at the time of publication to his fellow founding member of the 'The Guild of Literature and Art'.  Bleak House is "Dedicated, as a remembrance of our friendly union, to my companions in the Guild of Literature and Art".

The final double number of the parts issue  of Bleak House had appeared on 31 August 1853, and was followed by considerable celebrations among members of Dickens's household and close circle, including a dinner attended by Mark Lemon and John Forster. Another dedication copy of the first book edition was inscribed by Dickens to a fellow Guild member, John Tenniel, on the same date (3 October): see the sale at Sotheby's New York, 21 July 1992, lot 49.

Dickens had first met the magazine editor and playwright Mark Lemon (1870--1870), affectionately known as "Uncle Porpoise" to Dickens's children,  sometime soon after Lemon had become the sole editor of Punch upon its acquisition by Bradbury and Evans in December 1842. The introduction probably came from fellow playwright and journalist  Douglas Jerrold. Evans later recalled that it was Lemon's "eloquence alone that induced me to buy Punch", with Lemon declaring that "I was made for Punch and Punch  for me" (Pilgrim Edition of The Letters of Charles Dickens, volume 3, note to p.469). Previously Lemon had worked for his uncle's hops business in Lincolnshire, then at a brewery in London, and then by 1840 at Shakespeare's Head Tavern in Wych Street, which was a haunt of many of the great literary and theatrical figures of the period. Although best known as the foremost editor of Punch in this early period Lemon was also a prolific author of over 30 farces, burlettas, melodramas and other plays, as well as providing the libretto, for instance, for the English version of Rossini's La Donna del Lago, well-received at Covent Garden in February 1843. Lemon's friendship with Dickens grew after being formally invited to dinner by the novelist in April of the same year. With Gilbert à Beckett Lemon adapted Dickens's Chimes for the Adelphi in February 1844, with The Haunted Man following in 1848. A shared passion for amateur theatricals cemented their friendship, with Lemon appearing as Brainworm and Dickens as Bobadil in Jonson's Every Man in his Humour, staged at the St. James Theatre in the autumn of 1845 before transferring to Manchester and Liverpool in 1847, and then being revived in 1848 in London. This alternated with The Merry Wives of Windsor, in which Lemon famously appeared as Falstaff alongside Dickens. A more lengthy provincial tour followed in which the two friends supplemented their Shakespearian repertoire with roles in various farces (see R.M. Healey, Oxford DNB.)

Together with Bulwer Lytton, Wilkie Collins, John Forster, Douglas Jerrold, John Tenniel and others Dickens and Lemon then founded "The Guild of Literature and Art", in which proceeds from amateur theatricals and other similar performances (often written and produced by Dickens, and often performed at Bulwer Lytton's Knebworth House) were generated for the benefit of distinguished literary and artistic veterans such as Leigh Hunt, Sheridan Knowles and John Poole. After one such performance Lytton and Dickens agreed that something more dignified than the charity of private donations was needed, and they agreed on the setting up of an endowment combining "these purposes with the bestowing of an honourable distinction". Lytton would write a comedy, and Dickens's company would act the play throughout England, with all proceeds going to the endowment. The play was Not so Bad as We Seem, with Lemon taking the part of Sir Geoffrey. The first performance was at Devonshire House before Queen Victoria and Prince Albert on 16th May 1851. To the same purpose Lemon and Dickens co-wrote and performed Mr Nightingale's Diary (1851), and appeared in private productions of Wilkie Collins's melodramas The Lighthouse (1855) and The Frozen Deep (1857). By then Lemon and his family had become frequent visitors to Dickens's home in Tavistock House, and the friends would take nocturnal strolls around London together and go on excursions such as a tour of Salisbury Plain in 1848. In 1849 Dickens submitted his only contribution to Punch (an attack on the suburban water supply), but Lemon deemed it unsuitable for publication. There then followed a period of estrangement between the two friends when Lemon neglected to publish in Punch the novelist's proclamation outlining the reasons behind his separation from his wife Catherine (Catherine had, in fact, been advised by Lemon). The men were eventually reconciled in 1867.

Bleak House, with its sharp satire focussing on the interminable delays and complications of the court of chancery ("most pestilent of hoary sinners"), and its powerful depiction of a huge cross-section of contemporary English society depicted through the lens of Dickens's masterly use of double narration, is now regarded as among the greatest of all the novelist's works.