Beschreibung:

DICKENS, CHARLES. The Great International Walking-Match Of February 29, 1868. [Boston, March 1868]. Broadside, 20 3/4 x 23in. (53 x 58.3cm.), printed in black in double columns, with two headlines in reddish-brown, on light brown paper, gilt border, framed under glass (?the frame original, with new backing), some tiny, light spotting. THE VERY RARE FIRST (AND) ONLY PRINTING, SIGNED BY DICKENS AND THE OTHER PARTICIPANTS, all signatures in light blue ink, a five cent U.S. revenue stamp ( a bit faded ) pasted to blank inset portion on broadside, with four newspaper clippings ( ca . 1900-1901) regarding the Walking-Match and sales of the broadside at auction pasted to back of frame. Eckel, p. 225; "An Exhibition of...Charles Dickens ..Selected from His Collection and Described by Colonel Richard Gimbel" in The Yale University Library Gazette , vol. 37, no. 2, October 1962, no. 132. In fine condition (unexamined out of frame). In Boston in early February 1868, during Dickens's last American reading tour, his manager George Dolby and his publisher James R. Osgood, "who were always doing ridiculous things to keep Dickens in spirits, had decided...to hold a walking match on the 29th [of the month]...Dickens drew up burlesque articles of agreement [the first part of the broadside] for this 'Great International Walking-Match,' in which Dolby was given the sporting nickname of the 'Man of Ross' and Osgood [junior partner of James T. Fields] was the 'Boston Bantam.' The umpires were Fields, 'Massachusetts Jemmy,' and Dickens...'The Gad's Hill Gasper.' Going at a tremendous pace, Dickens and Fields laid out the course: six and a half miles along the Mill Dam Road to Newton Centre and then back. It was covered with snow and sheets and blocks of ice. Despite his cold Dickens turned up for the race...Just before the turning point Dickens put on a great spurt to establish himself there ahead of the contestants..." (Edgar Johnson, Charles Dickens , New York, 1952, vol. 2, p. 1088). As Dickens reports in "The Sporting Narrative" section of the broadside, after the turning at Newton Centre the "Boston Bantam" (Osgood) forged ahead and "pegged away with his little drum-sticks as if he saw his wives and a peck of barley waiting for him at the family perch." The publisher won the race over Dickens's manager. That evening the author gave an elaborate dinner for eighteen at the Parker House in honor of the contestants. As Johnson notes, the mirth continued after the dinner: "Around ten o'clock, when the other guests had gone, Dickens went upstairs to his room with Dolby and Osgood, in joking high spirits. Water had been drawn for his bath and he entertained his companions by giving an imitation of [the clown Joseph] Grimaldi on the rolling edge of the tub. In the midst of the complicated feat, he lost his balance and, with a tidal wave of a splash, fell in, evening dress, boutonniere, gold chains, brilliantined earlocks, and all" ( ibid ., p. 1089). The broadside is signed by Dickens, Dolby, Osgood, and Fields next to their sporting nicknames; just below V.S. Anthony has signed as "Witness to the signatures." The printing of the broadside is dealt with in Article 5: "A sporting narrative to be written by The Gasper within one week after its [the race's] coming off, and the same to be duly printed (at the expense of the subscribers to these articles) on a broadside. The said broadside to be framed and glazed, and one copy of the same to be carefully preserved by each of the subscribers to these articles." The exact number of copies printed is not known, although the number was certainly very small. The last copy sold at auction, according to ABPC, was in the Lewis A. Hird Dickens Collection (Parke-Bernet, 17 November 1953, lot 60, $400) where the catalogue description stated: "...it is said that only five copies were printed, one for each of the signers." Eckel (p. 225) remarks: "This is an extremely rare broadside...written by Dickens in the style