Description
The first American edition The Life of Our Lord: Written for His Children by Charles Dickens.
Octavo, [2], 128pp. Publisher’s green cloth, title stamped in gilt on spine and front cover, top edge dyed black. Previous owner’s gift inscription on the half title. In the publisher’s dust jacket, $1.75 on the rear flap, light soiling to the spine, bright illustrations. A fine example.
First published by Associated Newspapers Ltd. in London in 1934, with a foreword by Lady Dickens, frontispiece portrait of Dickens, facsimile manuscript page, and additional illustrations. Written by Dickens between 1846 and 1849 for the private instruction of his children, the manuscript remained unpublished during his lifetime. It was released only after the death of his son Sir Henry Fielding Dickens in 1933, when the family authorized publication. Dickens’s original manuscript was purchased by a group of private collectors and, in 1964, was presented to the Free Library of Philadelphia, which has held it ever since.
