Books

First edition. Pictures from Italy was Dickens's second travel book, based on the letters he published in the Daily News (21 January - 11 March 1846), describing his journey through France and sojourn in Italy, in 1844-45. While preparing the book for the press, Dickens hit a snag: "Clarkson Stanfield had agreed to illustrate the text for Dickens but, when he read those passages of the narrative in which Dickens satirises the excesses of Catholic devotion, he resigned from the project. Stanfield was himself a prominent English Catholic, after all, as Dickens knew, and he could scarcely be connected with a publication which treats his Church's ritual as little more than a parade of mummers... As usual, [Dickens] went at once into action in order to find a substitute; fortunately and curiously, he chose a young artist who then had no real reputation, Samuel Palmer, whose wonderful illustrations are not the least of the merits of Pictures from Italy in its final state" (Ackroyd, pp. 491-2). The "young" Palmer was, in fact, 41 at the time and had travelled to Italy with his wife in late 1837. Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt, spine and covers decoratively stamped in blind, pale yellow endpapers, edges untrimmed. Wood-engraved title vignette, 3 other vignettes, all by Samuel Palmer. Contemporary bookseller's ticket to front pastedown, contemporary ink ownership signature to front free endpaper (spot washed). A little fraying to spine ends, slight wear to two tips, inner hinges beginning to split but holding, light dampstain to rear endpapers, small paper flaw to upper margin of pp. 83-6, text unaffected, contents bright. A very good copy. Smith II, 7; Peter Ackroyd, Dickens, 1990.