DICKENS READINGS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 58, 6 September 1937, Page 11

DICKENS READINGS

NOVELIST'S COPY SOLD

Dickens lovers know that he used to give three readings from' his works which were not only very popular to his listeners, but were enjoyed by himself. '.. Those were "Bardell and Pickwick." "Mr. Chops, the Dwarf," and "Mr. Bob • Sawyer's Party," says the "Daily Telegraph." In 1866 Dickens had twenty copies of the three privately printed for presentation to close personal friends. One given- to Mr. George Gurney was apparently the actual copy used by Dickens at his readings, because it contains many deletions, corrections, and additions in his hand. This appeared at Sotheby's, and Mr. Ernest Maggs was rnade^to pay £400 for the ' precious relic. The little volume had both the Dickens • and the Gads Hill bookplates, and was sent for sale by Mr. Andrew W. Arnold, of Dorking. His father, JSdward Arnold, may be recalled as the boy friend of Ruskin, and they both had the same tutor. In' 1920 Mr Andrew Arnold sent his father's superb collection of French furniture to Christie's, and the sale totalled. £36,000, the present. Lord Duveen then giving 4300 guineas for a Riesener commode bought originally for a much smaller. sum from Samson Wertheimer, the father of Charles Mr. W. Robinson gave as much as £540 'for the late Major Ralph Creyke's copy of Sir' Philip Sidney's 1590 "The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia." This had been bought in the Huth sale, 1921, for £355, Since then no copy had turned up until this sale. ■ Mr. Robinson also bought for £780 one of those first editions of the Kilmarnock- Burns which used to be picked up in«>Perth and Aberdeen for half a crown. The late Sir John Wolfe-Barry was' an admirer of the sea pictures by W. L. Wyllie, R.A. At Christie's eight appeared in his small collection. Only moderate sums, however, were paid, the highest being 19 guineas for a smaller version of the painter's "Pool of London." j