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DICKENS, Charles.
The Personal History of David Copperfield.
London, Brandbury & Evans, 1850.
In-8 de XIV pp., (1) f. pour l'errata, 624 pp., 40 planches dont un titre et un frontispice :
demi-maroquin rouge à grain long avec coins, dos à nerfs, pièces de titre de maroquin vert,
tranches marbrées
(reliure de l'époque).
Édition originale, rare.
Elle est illustrée d'un frontispice et de 38 planches gravées sur acier par Phiz, pseudonyme de
Hablot K. Browne, l'un des illustrateurs préférés de Dickens.
Le chef-d'œuvre de Charles Dickens, roman poignant et en partie autobiographique que l'auteur
considérait comme son “enfant préféré”.
Précieux exemplaire personnel de Charles Dickens, qui l'a finalement offert à l'un de ses amis.
Le feuillet de dédicace porte en effet cet ex-dono autographe signé :
J.L. Rickards Esquire From Charles Dickens
Tavistock House Thirty First May, 1854.
L'exemplaire est accompagné d'une lettre de Dickens à Rickards, datée du même jour.
“
Dear Sir, I wish to preserve between us some little outward and visible remembrance of your generous Mexican
adventure – the adventure for which I was unconsciously responsible. Will you do me the favor to accept my own copy of
a book for which I have a particular affection ? In the assurance that you will like it none the worse for coming from my
study shelves. I beg you to accept it with my thanks and good wishes. Faithfully yours Charles Dickens.
”
Pour Madeline House, coresponsable de la Pilgrim Edition, le destinataire de ce précieux exemplaire
est ce John Rickards qui vivait près de la Joseph King's School, établissement fréquenté par les deux
fils les plus âgés de Dickens. Répondant aux questions d'un spécialiste de Sotheby's avant la mise en
vente du volume, Mme House écrivait : “It seems to us possible that John Rickards was an Assistant
Master at Joseph King's school, and that there Dickens met him. (His later disappearance from
London Directories could mean that he had now moved into the school ? or gone to Mexico !) He
turns up again, this time in Brighton, where, at the age of 72, he died in 1858...”
Mme House suppose que
l'aventure mexicaine
se rapporte peut-être à une expérience pédagogique :
“The harsh pictures Dickens had drawn of certain schools may well have had a profound effect on
Rickards, and in this way Dickens had been 'unconsciously responsible' for a 'generous Mexican
[educational] adventure' undertaken by Rickards. We discovered in the British Museum a pamphlet
in Spanish on 'the Lancastrian System' of teaching in schools, as tried in Mexico – the date of the
pamphlet being 1854 (the date of your Dickens letter). Rickards is not mentioned in the pamphlet
by name ; yet the coincidence of date, an English system being tried in Mexico, and your letter,
makes me hopeful that this is a solution to the problem.”
“Will
you do me
the favor
to accept
my own
copy
of a book
for which
I have a
particular
affection ?”