Beschreibung:

DICKENS, Charles (1812-1870). A Curious Dance Round a Curious Tree . [N.p.: For St. Luke's Hospital, 1860]. 8 o. Original printed pink wrappers (vertical fold crease as usual). Second Issue. Dickens's description of Christmas in St. Luke's Hospital for the insane originally appeared in Household Words for January 1852; it next was printed in this pamphlet form as part of a fund-raising effort on behalf of the hospital. Norman 636. -- American Notes for General Circulation . London, 1842. 8 o. 2 vols. Original plum cloth (faded with slight staining, inner hinges cracked). First issue. ASSOCIATION COPY, inscribed by Dickens's second daughter Kate Perugini on the dedication leaf to an Albert Whitin in 1920. "Dickens visited the Boston Lunatic Hospital and the New York Lunatic Asylum during his famous American tour in 1842 [described in American Notes ]...the [New York] facility, with its 'lounging, listless madhouse air' (p. 111), disgusted him" (Norman). Deutsch, pp. 144-145. FIRST EDITIONS. Norman 635. (3)