THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD, and Some Uncollected Pieces

1870. With Illustrations. Boston: Fields, Osgood, & Co., 1870. Original green cloth.

First American Edition, second issue with added material -- of the tale left unfinished at the time of Dickens's death in June 1870. In addition to DROOD, this second issue adds James T. Fields's introductory "Some Memories of Charles Dickens," plus Dickens's "George Silverman's Explanation," "Holiday Romance," "Sketches of Young Couples," "New Uncommercial Samples" plus "The Will of Charles Dickens." Since 1867, Ticknor & Fields (and then Fields Osgood) had been Dickens's authorized publisher in America; they had serialized DROOD in their weekly Every Saturday, and then published this book in early September. (Ticknor & Fields had specifically commissioned Dickens to write "Holiday Romance," so that it could appear in their children's periodical Our Young Folks in 1868.) Harper also serialized DROOD in a monthly Dickens supplement to Harper's Weekly, but did not get their book edition out until late September. This copy is in the original green cloth, in the second binding state -- 9-1/16 inches tall, with a generic design replacing the FO&Co emblem on the covers, and with a JRO&Co monogram (rather than FO&Co) at the foot of the spine: when James T. Fields retired on New Year's Day 1871, the firm became James R. Osgood & Company. The volume is in very good condition (minor external wear, pp 13-16 edge-worn with tape mend at gutter, also reinforced at the gutter of the frontispiece). Smith pp 412-416; Podeschi (Yale) A156; Carr (UTexas) B278; Wilkins p. 35 (Smith notes that later copies were bound without the FO&Co initials on the covers, but does not note any change in spine monogram; otherwise this JRO&Co binding is is not cited by any of these sources).