DICKENS' NEW STORIES [first U.S. edition of "The Seven Poor Travellers"]

1855. Containing: The Seven Poor Travellers. Nine New Stories by the Christmas Fire. Hard Times... With a Portrait of the Author, engraved on steel. Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson, n.d. [1855]. Original dark brown cloth, blind-stamped, with spine vignette in gilt.

First Edition so collected, first issue (in the dark brown binding with spine vignette in gilt, "T.B. Peterson" at the foot of the spine, and 102 Chestnut Street as the title page address). Although the volume consists of six works "by Dickens," the last three are not ("Lizzie Leigh," "The Miner's Daughters" and "Fortune Wildred"). The first two pieces in the volume, which really do involve Dickens, are "The Seven Poor Travellers" and "Nine New Stories by the Christmas Fire": these were the "Extra Christmas Numbers" of Dickens's periodical Household Words for 1854 and 1853 respectively. "Nine New Stories" is the American title for "Another Round of Stories": of the stories, Dickens himself wrote "The Schoolboy's Story" and "Nobody's Story." For "The Seven Poor Travellers," this constitutes the first American edition, published soon after it came out in London for Christmas 1854; Dickens himself wrote "the First Poor Traveller" and "The Road." Finally, Dickens's novel HARD TIMES is also included in this volume, in its entirety; it had been serialized in Household Words during 1854, and this is a very early (but not first) American edition of it. This copy is in near-fine condition (very light wear at the spine ends). See Podeschi D25.