[DICKENS, CHARLES]. Our Mutual Friend. London: Chapman & Hall, 1865.
Hardcover. First edition in book form. Two volumes bound in one. Leather-bound. Octavo (215 x 135mm), pp. [xii], 320; [viii], 309. Finely bound in dark-green full morocco, signed by Bayntun-Riviere, Bath, England. Spine with five raised bands, the compartments and bands fully gilt ruled, tooled and lettered. Boards and edges gilt ruled. Upper board with gilt impressed oval portrait vignette of the author. Rear board with gilt impressed authors facsimile signature. Elaborate inner gilt dentelles. All page edges gilt. Marbled pastedowns and endpapers. Engraved frontispieces. 40 illustrations by Marcus Stone. Bound without publisher's advertisements. Condition: FINE. A superb copy; internally pristine, crisp pages, and without previous ownership markings; binding tight, the hinges perfectly preserved, gilt fresh and bright, couple of tiny marks to covers. Scarce thus.
Note: This was the second to last book that Dickens would write, and the last one that he would actually finish. The years shortly before the publication of OUR MUTUAL FRIEND were fraught with domestic sorrow that would lead to his eventual decline. He separated from his wife Catherine in 1858 after his admiration for the young actress Ellen Ternan strained his already deteriorating marriage. He further had to defend himself against scandal and protest his innocence when wagging tongues of gossip linked his name to his sister-in-law Georgina s who had served as his housekeeper for many years. He threw his restless energy into increased productivity and public readings of his work, both of which were physically and emotionally exhausting. He suffered from recurrent illnesses during the creation of OUR MUTUAL FRIEND, but nonetheless managed to maintain the level of genius in his prose that had pervaded his previous works. He died unexpectedly only five years later, while he was writing THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. He had, with this novel, ".for the first time given serious consideraiton to the theme of unrequited love. In earlier books it may have been secret or ill-timed, but there was always and equilibrium in which both parties seem to accept that they loved or can be loved; and that, when eventually they declare their love, it is not rejected." But "there is torture in love, and despair, and madness. There is some necessary connection between courtship and death.so tht.it is possible to trace the strange curve of Dickens temperment exploring extremity in art if not necessarily life." (Ackroyd, 955) Like most of Dickens work, OUR MUTUAL FRIEND was published in monthly serial parts, the first in May of 1864 and the last in November of 1865. This two-volume set was released almost immediately after the issue of the final episode.
