¶Podeschi A26. VanderPoel B527(1). Apparently issued both with and without a frontispiece by Phiz; this copy is without (marginally the more common variant, though still extremely scarce), and adheres to all first edition points. Eckel described this as 'rarest of the obtainable works of Charles Dickens and for that reason the most costly'. Based on 'The Winglebury Duel' in Sketches by Boz, Dickens's text was heavily revised during rehearsals and various songs were added that were needed to turn it into a 'burletta'. The result was a triumph. The little play was, according to The Times, 'very well received throughout, and announced for repetition with great applause'. It was, the reviewer noted, 'from the pen of a gentleman who has very much amused the town by the broad humour and downright fun of sketches published by him under the soubriquet "Boz".' John Pritt Harley played the title role for sixty nights; others in the cast were Madame Sala, the mother of George Augustus Sala, who became one of Dickens's brightest young men on Household Words, and the Misses Smith - nieces of Kitty Stephen, who became the Countess of Essex. The Strange Gentleman was written before Pickwick; Dickens sent the manuscript to Chapman & Hall in February 1836: 'Dear Sirs, Pickwick is at length begun in all his might and glory. The first chapter will be ready tomorrow. I want to publish The Strange Gentleman. If you have no objection to doing it, I should be happy to let you have the refusal of it. I need not say that nobody else has seen or heard of it. Believe me (in a Pickwickian haste), Faithfully yours CD'.