Finely Bound, with an Autograph Letter, Signed
Vanity Fair. A Novel Without a Hero.
London: Bradbury and Evans, 1848.
Price: $3,500.00
About the item
First edition, mixed issue: with the title on p. 1 in rustic type, "Mr. Mott" for "Sir Pitt" on p. 453, but lacking the suppressed woodcut on p. 336. With engraved frontispiece, engraved title-page, 38 engraved plates, and numerous engravings on steel and textual wood illustrations by the author. xvi, 624, [1] pp. 8vo. Full red crushed red levant with gilt borders, spine and turn-ins gilt, marbled endpapers, a.e.g., by Bayntun Riviere. Autograph Letter, signed, inserted at front. Fine. Van Duzer 230; Grolier English 87.
Item #366292
The letter, on a folded 8vo sheet, is undated, and likely written to Percival Leigh, the humorist who wrote for Punch, and who was an intimate of Thackeray.
The full text reads:
Clarendon, Sunday
Dear Mr. Leigh
I hope the clerk at the bar told you that I was prevented from coming home by illness last night. Will you call here the first morning you are free? About 9 will to the best time & I'll see you well or ill.
Fathfully yours
WM Thackeray.
