The Dickens-Kolle Letters: Supplemental to the Letters from Charles Dickens to Maria Beadnell– edited by Harry B. Smith, The Bibliophile Society, Boston, 1910, 90 pp., hardcover, no jacket, limited to 483 copies for members of the Bibliophile Society.
Generally good, with spotting on spine, several pages uncut and foxing throughout. Missing the double slipcases that encased the limited editions.
This was written as an exhibition of previously known but unpublished and unseen early Dicken’s letters. Now it reads more like a collector’s story of determination and detective work. Smith, a famous librettist, was also a famous collector of the early 1900’s. For related material see “Charles Dickens and Maria Beadnell: Private Correspondence” and Smith’s later works “A Sentimental Library” and “First Nights and First Editions.”
In 1908 the Bibliophile Society published a group of early love letters from Dicken’s to Maria Beadnell, along with a less amorous set of letters to the same women two decades later. The letters were owned by William K. Bixby and the book edited by George Pierce Baker. In illustrating the rarity of early Dickens letters, the editor cites Dickens’ own admission in a letter that he intentionally destroyed 20 years of his early correspondence and papers. A footnote revealed a claim that a different set of early letters to a friend were sold in the autograph market a decade earlier. The editor “hopes that the publication of the letters in this book may bring this set to light, for they should supplement and explain the letters here given.” Enter the collector, Harry Smith. He acquired the missing letters and edited the book. The Dickens-Kolle letters was printed in an almost identical style as the Beadnell book.
The Dickens-Kolle Letters: Supplemental to the Letters from Charles Dickens to Maria Beadnell– edited by Harry B. Smith, The Bibliophile Society, Boston, 1910, 90 pp., hardcover, no jacket, limited to 483 copies for members of the Bibliophile Society.
Generally good, with spotting on spine, several pages uncut and foxing throughout. Missing the double slipcases that encased the limited editions.
This was written as an exhibition of previously known but unpublished and unseen early Dicken’s letters. Now it reads more like a collector’s story of determination and detective work. Smith, a famous librettist, was also a famous collector of the early 1900’s. For related material see “Charles Dickens and Maria Beadnell: Private Correspondence” and Smith’s later works “A Sentimental Library” and “First Nights and First Editions.”
In 1908 the Bibliophile Society published a group of early love letters from Dicken’s to Maria Beadnell, along with a less amorous set of letters to the same women two decades later. The letters were owned by William K. Bixby and the book edited by George Pierce Baker. In illustrating the rarity of early Dickens letters, the editor cites Dickens’ own admission in a letter that he intentionally destroyed 20 years of his early correspondence and papers. A footnote revealed a claim that a different set of early letters to a friend were sold in the autograph market a decade earlier. The editor “hopes that the publication of the letters in this book may bring this set to light, for they should supplement and explain the letters here given.” Enter the collector, Harry Smith. He acquired the missing letters and edited the book. The Dickens-Kolle letters was printed in an almost identical style as the Beadnell book.