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The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman. The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman. The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman.

DICKENS, Charles. The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. FIRST EDITION, first issue. 12mo. Charles Tilt. 1839
Half title, front. & plates, 8pp ads. Orig. green cloth, lettered & pictorially blocked in gilt; sl. dulled. Trace of removed booklabel on leading pastedown. A good-plus copy of the scarce first issue, housed in a custom-made folding box imitating a bound volume, dark green morocco spine with green cloth sides; sl. rubbed, hinges chipped at head & tail. WITH: a well-executed hand-drawn & hand-coloured reproduction of the front cover illustration, probably done some time later in the 19thC, inserted as intended into the folding box.

¶Cohn 243. With the word 'wine' in the fifth stanza, and pages numbered at the top centre (except in the preliminaries and notes). The fullest account of Lord Bateman and Cruikshank, Dickens, and Thackeray's participation in it remains that provided by Anne Lyon Haight, Charles Dickens Tries to Remain Anonymous: Notes on 'The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman'. Cruikshank, like Dickens, often entertained his friends with seriocomic songs. He particularly relished a cockney variant of the popular old ballad of an English Lord who travels to the East, is imprisoned, then released by the jailer's daughter whom he promises to marry in seven years. On one occasion Cruikshank sang Lord Bateman for Dickens who urged him to publish the ballad with the tune and illustrations. Dickens assisted in polishing the ballad, altering a few words and replacing the last verse with a new one. Dickens obtained the services of his musical sister Fanny and her husband Henry Burnett to score Cruikshank's tune and mark the expression and gestures. Despite his admiration for Lord Bateman, Dickens never publicly acknowledged his contributions to it. Disconcerted when the Morning Post mentioned him as the author, he begged Cruikshank to remain silent. 'Pray be strict in not putting this about as I am particularly - most particularly - anxious to remain unknown in the matter for weighty reasons' - possibly his contract with Bentley. The artist kept the author's secret for almost thirty years but Dickens's involvement was confirmed by notes among the papers of F.W. Pailthorpe, recording a visit to Cruikshank in 1866 or 7: '... read Lord Bateman, and was surprised to find that the literary portion of the book was not by him but by Dickens'. 'Yes', said George, 'Charlie did it for me.' This, added Pailthorpe, 'was the only time I ever heard him speak in kindly tones of Charles Dickens'; and after Dickens's death Cruikshank told him: 'I so hated the fellow that I had a great mind to rewrite it'.
Stock #92274
£750


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