A WONDERFUL GHOST STORY BEING MR H.'S OWN NARRATIVE REPRINTED FROM "ALL THE YEAR ROUND" WITH LETTERS HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED OF CHARLES DICKENS TO THE AUTHOR RESPECTING IT. London: Griffith & Farran (Successors to Newberry and Harris) ... New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1882. Small octavo, pp. [1: blank] 2-3: ads] [4: blank] [1-5] 6 [7] 8-87 [88: blank] [89-91: ads] 92: blank] [note: first and last leaves serve as front and rear paste-downs], original pictorial chromolithographed yellow card wrappers. First edition. A shorter version of Heaphy's story appeared anonymously as the first of "Four Ghost Stories" in ALL THE YEAR ROUND on 14 September 1861. The story, perhaps written by Dickens, was based on an oral narration by Sir Edward Lytton who had received a manuscript version of the tale from Edward Ward. Shortly after publication, Dickens received a letter from Heaphy who accused Dickens of plagiarizing his then unpublished story, the artist's own account of an encounter with the ghost of a young lady whose portrait he later painted from memory for her father. Heaphy's "account of the whole experience, so very original, so very extraordinary, so very far beyond the version I have published, that all other like stories turn pale before it" (Dickens), was published in ALL THE YEAR ROUND on 5 October 1861. Pages [5]-17 contain Dickens's letters to Heaphy dated 15 September, 17 September and 20 September 1861. Wilson, Shadows in the Attic, p. 184. Bleiler (1978), p. 97. Podeschi, Dickens and Dickensiana: A Catalogue of the Richard Gimbel Collection in the Yale University Library D97. Wolff 3110. Spine panel chipped at upper and lower edges with some loss to title lettering thereon, shallow loss along top edge of rear cover near spine, rear cover dusty, a very good copy with bright front cover. A nice copy of this very fragile yellowback. (#170618).
Price: $450.00
No statement of printing.