8vo (180 x 120 mm). (Some light soiling, vertical crease.) Original printed wrappers (soiled); green morocco folding-case gilt. Provenance: Barnton (bookplate). 

 

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, with the appeal for funds on the last page of text in the same type as the main body of text. Dickens first wrote of his Christmas Eve visit to St. Luke's Hospital for Lunatics in Household Words in 1852; with Dickens's permission, his account was reprinted in this pamphlet to raise money for the institution. Eckel, pp.188-91/Gimbel B216.

 

[Boxed with:] A Curious Dance Round a Curious Tree. [London: St. Luke's Hospital, 1860]. (Lacking pp.13-14 and printed wrappers.) FIRST EDITION, second issue, with the appeal in larger bold type.

 

Property of an Illinois collector