Dickens, Charles

8vo, twelfth edition, PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR ON TITLE-PAGE ("Thomas Powell, | From | Charles Dickens | September Fourth 1845"), half-title, frontispiece and additional engraved title, illustrations by Daniel Maclise, Richard Doyle, John Leech, Clarkson Stanfield, original red cloth decorated and lettered in gilt, all edges gilt, preserved in quarter morocco folding box, expertly recased, some spotting and slight soiling to preliminaries and endpapers

"Ellen Maria Streater", ownership signature on verso of half-title; "E. Harrell", ownership signature on front endpaper

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing unless otherwise stated
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

INSCRIBED TO THE NOTORIOUS MISCELLANEOUS WRITER, FORGER AND FRAUDSTER THOMAS POWELL (1809--1887), THE PART-INSPIRATION (TOGETHER WITH HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN) FOR THE FAMOUSLY SYCOPHANTIC CHARACTER "URIAH HEEP" IN DAVID COPPERFIELD.

Thomas Powell started out as a minor writer and poet, meeting Wordsworth, Leigh Hunt and Swinburne among others, and becoming editor of the Foreign and Colonial Review by 1843. He probably met Dickens at their mutual friend Thomas Chapman's party at Crosby Hall in July 1842, and the two were still friendly in 1846 until just before Powell's series of forgeries defrauding his employer Chapman out of £10,000 was discovered. Powell attempted suicide through laudanum, and Chapman dismissed him, but did not prosecute him for the sake of his family. Dickens wrote to Chapman on 3rd July 1846: "...I have been perfectly horrified by the whole story. I could hardly name a man in London whom I should have thought less likely to stand so committed, than he..." (Collected Letters, p.575). Powell was arrested again in 1848 for further forgeries, but was admitted to Miles's Lunatic Asylum in Hoxton later that year having had himself certified as insane, and evaded his charges. He set off for America in the spring of 1849, where he successfully portrayed himself as a well-connected literary man, going so far as to publish a sketch of Dickens in The Evening Post.  Hearing of the sketch, Dickens wrote a long letter to Lewis Gayford Clark of The Knickerbocker Magazine cautioning as to Powell's complete untrustworthiness and career as a thief and forger (the letter was published in the New York Tribune.) Powell then sued Dickens for £10,000; in retaliation, Dickens gathered together all of the evidence of Powell’s misdeeds (this was published in a pamphlet which has survived in only one copy), forwarded it to Clark, who forwarded it to the New York police. Powell was arrested, but discharged for lack of evidence. Powell continued as a New York journalist and literary man until January 1887, when he committed suicide.