Dickens, The Chimes, 1845, eleventh edition, presentation copy inscribed to Mrs Curry, with autograph letter signed

DICKENS, CHARLES

The Chimes: A Goblin Story. London: Chapman and Hall, 1845

8vo (166 x 104mm.), eleventh edition, PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR ON THE HALF-TITLE ("Mrs: Curry | From | Charles Dickens | Genoa. Twelfth April 1845"), AUTOGRAPH LETTER BY DICKENS (APPARENTLY UNPUBLISHED) TO MRS CURRY LOOSELY INSERTED PRESENTING THE BOOK ("My dear Mrs: Curry. Do me the favor to accept the acompanying little book. It is a very poor mark of my sincere and cordial regards..."; 1 page, small 8vo, Peschiere, Genoa, 12 April 1845, with autograph envelope), 13 illustrations (including frontispiece and vignette title) by Maclise, Doyle, Leech and Stanfield, pale endpapers, original deep red vertically-ribbed cloth, uppers decorated in blind, upper cover pictorially gilt with design of seven goblins above six chimes, spine and upper cover lettered in gilt, all edges gilt, preserved in full red morocco pull-off box

AN INSCRIBED PRESENTATION COPY OF DICKENS' SECOND "CHRISTMAS" BOOK.

Mr and Mrs Thomas C. Curry were among the English residents in Genoa whom Dickens and his family befriended during their sojourn there in 1844/5, and whose "untiring kindness" the author "long remembered" (Forster, IV, iii, 336). Thomas Curry was a merchant and probable agent for a steamship company. Dickens sent messages to his wife and children in June 1847, and revisited the family in October 1853 (see The Letters, volume 4, p.172).

The Chimes was published on 16 December 1844 (despite the 1845 title page); its popularity is attested by this eleventh edition already appearing by the time Dickens presented this copy in April 1845

REFERENCE:

cf Smith II: 5

PROVENANCE:

Mr and Mrs Thomas Curry, authorial presentation inscription