Lot 107: [THE CHIMES]. -- [PLANCHÉ, Matilda Anne, afterwards Mrs. Mackarness (1825-1881)]. Old Jolliffe: Not a Goblin Story. By the Spirit of a Little Bell, Awakened by "The Chimes." London: W.N. Wright, 1845.

[THE CHIMES]. -- [PLANCHÉ, Matilda Anne, afterwards Mrs. Mackarness (1825-1881)]. Old Jolliffe: Not a Goblin Story. By the Spirit of a Little Bell, Awakened by "The Chimes." London: W.N. Wright, 1845.

8o (165 x 105 mm). (Lightly browned, one or two spots.) Original purple-brown fine-diaper cloth, covers decorated with blind border of double fillet, inner wreath, lettered in gilt on the front cover, all edges gilt (unevenly faded to brown, one or two marks, extremities a bit rubbed). Provenance: Edward Blaker (contemporary gift inscription on front paste-down); Kenyon Starling (bookplate).

FIRST EDITION. An unsubtle satire on Dickens' The Chimes as told by Old Jolliffe: "I've been reading this morning, and I can't say I like my book, but I suppose you've read it, Sir, with the rest of the world, it's called the CHIMES, tho' they ain't very cheerful ones...I know that the intention is to do good, altho' the feelings expressed in it are much more likely to do harm; the poor on whose account it seems written, will never benefit by being taught they are very wretched, and oppressed, and not cared for by the rich..." Planché achieved literary success in 1849 with the publication of To Catch a Sunbeam, a children's book that subsequently ran to 42 editions. Yale/Gimbel H304.