Histoire Anecdotique De La Vie Et L’Oeuvre De Charles Dickens. L’Inimitable Boz. PONTAVICE DE HEUSSEY (Robert Du).

Double-page and folded engraved plate of medallion portraits of Dickens by Maison Quantin after F. Courboin (short tears at folds).

8vo. [230 x 137 x 28 mm]. viii, 397, [3] pp. Contemporary binding of brown goatskin, the covers tooled in gilt with a border of two dotted and solid triple fillets enclosing an all over design of a repeated flower, wreath and small flowerhead. The spine divided into six panels by raised bands and gilt compartments, lettered in the second and at the foot, the others with the flower, surrounded by the wreath and small flowerhead, the edges of the boards tooled with a gilt fillet, the turn-ins and matching inside joints with gilt rolls, green and gold floral patterned endleaves, marbled flyleaves, uncut edges. (Small repair at foot of spine).
Paris: Maison Quantin, 7 Rue Saint-Benoit, 1888.

The unpublished proofs of the first printing of Pontavise De Heussey's biography of Dickens's, L'Inimitable Boz. Almost every page has multiple corrections, errasions and additions - the author was certainly not happy with his first draft and the printer may well have been frustrated by the amount of work involved. Each signature has Maison Quantin's ink stamp with the dates recording the progress of the pages through the press. The verso of the title has the revised version, and the book was eventually published by Quantin in 1889.

At the front there is a long and rather melancholic six page manuscript (on the recto of six leaves of squared paper) addressed to "mes meilleurs amis, Alice et Jules Berthois", signed by the author and dated 5th February 1889.

Robert Du Pontavice De Heussey (1850-1893) was the son of the poet Hyacinthe, and he also wrote a biography of Auguste de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, published in Paris (by Albert Savine) in 1893.

Stock no. ebc7556