[A DICKENS COLLECTABLE IN THE RARE ORIGINAL PAPER COVER ]

[A DICKENS COLLECTABLE IN THE RARE ORIGINAL PAPER COVER ]DICKENS, CHARLESSPEECHES ON LITERARY AND SOCIAL OCCASIONS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICALondon, John Camden Hotten, [1870]. 8vo, original paper covers with title printed on upper cover and portrait of Dickens below, 'PRICE TWO SHILLINGS' above, lower cover with printed adverts, some chipping and loss at corners and edges of cover, some splitting to spine, advert leaf facing title with headline cut away, publisher's pink advertisement slip for Dickens 'Life' tipped-in at front, printed advert leaves at the end. Rare - we have not been able to locate any other copy in this original printed paper cover. Unusually, the upper cover with the woodcut portrait is page 1 of the book, with the inner cover advertisements being page 2, the advertisement leaf being pages 3 & 4, and the general printed title being page 5 - so the paper cover is integral and clearly was not intended by the publisher to be discarded for rebinding. Comes with a typed letter from 'The Dickens House' Museum in London, dated 1982, declining to give a valuation but confirming this copy as being "a collector's item"