Dickens Incognito, Felix Aylmer — 1st Edition

£24.99

Dickens Incognito, Felix Aylmer — 1st Edition

Name: Dickens Incognito, Felix Aylmer — 1st Edition
Brand: Broadhursts Books
SKU: 5620
Price: 24.99 GBP
Availability: InStock

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Publication: London, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1959

Formatting: 8vo, pp. 95, [1].

Condition Report: Near Fine. The publisher's original cloth binding is exceptionally firm, square, and tight, displaying sharp corners and no discernible shelf-lean or softening to the spine extremities. Internally, the text block remains unblemished, crisp, and bright throughout, completely free from spotting, foxing, toning, or previous ownership inscriptions. The original illustrated dust jacket is well preserved and structurally sound, showing minimal handling, crisp folds, and no tears, chipping, or paper loss, with only subtle, uniform age-toning along the spine and perimeter consistent with the unvarnished paper stock.

Catalogue Note: First edition, first impression of this investigative biographical study by the celebrated classical actor and scholar Felix Aylmer. The volume is illustrated with four photographic monochrome plates, featuring archival facsimiles of Charles Dickens’s encoded shorthand pocket diary entries and relevant parish records.

Drawing upon forensic documentary and genealogical research, Aylmer sets out to decipher the secret life of Charles Dickens during the late 1860s, focusing on his relationship with the actress Ellen Ternan and his adoption of the pseudonym 'Mr Tringham'. Although later Dickensian scholarship re-examined and revised certain aspects of Aylmer's conclusions concerning a child born to the couple, the work remains an influential landmark of mid-twentieth-century literary sleuthing.

Examples in such fresh, unrestored condition with an intact, unblemished dust jacket are distinctly uncommon on the market.

In Dickens Incognito, renowned British stage and screen actor Felix Aylmer turns literary detective to unpick one of the most closely guarded secrets of Victorian biography: Charles Dickens’s clandestine liaison with the young actress Ellen Ternan. Working from cryptically encoded notations in Dickens’s 1867 pocket diary, Aylmer traces the mysterious alias 'Mr Tringham' through census filings, rate books, and railway timetables. The result is an engaging exercise in biographical deduction that sheds light on the emotional turbulence, secrecy, and domestic subterfuge that marked the novelist’s final decade.

Book Condition: Near Fine

Book Authors: Felix Aylmer

Book Publisher: Rupert Hart-Davis

Book Language: English

Narrative Type: Non-Fiction

Genre: Criticism & Essays

Book edition: First Edition

Signed: No

Book Pages: 95

Book Publication Year: 1959

Book Publication Date:

Book Binding: Hardcover

Illustrator: N/A

Book Series: N/A

Country/region of manufacture: London, United Kingdom

Book Dimensions:

Book Condition Guide

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Condition	Description
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Near Fine	The book has a number of small flaws, i.e. slight rubbing to the edges, or tiny chips or creases to the dust jacket (if present). Its pages may have faint marks, or creases that are barely perceptible — nothing that detracts from their overall condition.
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