Auction Date:2011 Aug 10 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Third-person ALS, signed in the text as both “Mr. Charles Dickens” and “Mr. Dickens,” one page, 4.5 x 7, Gads Hill Place letterhead, December 20, 1869. Letter to the Secretary School for the Indigent Blind. In full: “Mr. Charles Dickens presents his compliments to the Secretary of the Institution for the Blind and begs to say that he has received from America two copies of his story ‘The Old Curiosity Shop,’ printed in raised letters for the use of the Blind which he forwards as a present to the pupils in St. Georges Fields by train to day. Before Mr. Dickens left America on the occasion of his last visit to the States, he left a sum of money with his friend Dr. Howe of Boston to be expended in the production of the Edition of which the two copies in question are a specimen.” In fine condition, with a touch of wrinkling and a trivial light spot to blank left edge. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope, bearing Dickens’ embossed monogram on the back flap, addressed in Dickens’ hand to “To The Secretary School for the Indigent Blind, near The Obelisk, St. Georges Fields, London, S.E.,” and postmarked London W.C., December 20, 1869.
Dickens’ “last visit to the States” included an 1867 stop in Boston, one that afforded him the opportunity to leave a cash reserve his aforementioned friend, “to be expended in the production of the Edition” of The Old Curiosity Shop. Though his triumphant return to US shores originally called for visits to Chicago and St. Louis, ill health and bad weather confined him to the Eastern states, where he stayed five months and delivered 76 speaking performances. His warm reception perhaps contributed to his largess as he followed through on his pledge to provide leisural material to sight-impaired students of the Perkins School for the Blind, thus making a Dickens’ tale the first secular book to be published in line-type Braille. A revealing look at Dickens’ philanthropic bent.
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5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
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