Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$275.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: Small book 3"x5". Decorative green cloth. 1st American edition. 96pp. Light edge-wear to covers. Good+.
Seller: Kevin T. Ransom- Bookseller, Amherst, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$358.12 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: pp: [5]6-96. FIRST EDITION. Written by Mark Lemon and fully revised by Dickens. It was privately printed in 1851, and published in 1877 by Osgood. Full burgundy leather covered boards, title and author stamped in gilt on the top board, raised bands to spine with gilt trim and decoration, new endpapers. All edges trimmed in gilt. The original front cover is laid in after the text.
Seller: MAPLE RIDGE BOOKS, UXBRIDGE, ON, Canada
Price: US$451.53 + shipping
Description: Orig. brick brown cloth, spine lettered in black, front board lettered in gilt & blocked in black, ads on e.ps; sl. wear to head & tail of spine. Contemp. signature 'Plumb' on titlepage & leading f.e.p. A v.g. copy of a scarce item. Gimbel B215. Written in collaboration with Mark Lemon and performed in 1851; the privately printed edition of 1851 is known in only a handful of copies.
Seller: Jarndyce, The 19th Century Booksellers, London, United Kingdom
Dickens, Charles. MR. NIGHTINGALE'S DIARY: A Farce in One Act. , 1877.
Price: US$475.00 + shipping
Description: Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1877. Original terra-cotta cloth decorated in black. First "Collectible" Edition of this play first performed in 1851. We say first "collectible" because there are only four known copies of the original 1851 pamphlet; supposedly a fifth, from which Osgood printed this edition, was destroyed in the Boston fire of 1879. This is a volume in the publisher's "Vest Pocket Series," so named for its diminutive size (a second Dickens "comic burletta" was published in this series the same year -- IS SHE HIS WIFE?). This copy is terra-cotta in color; others are green, without priority. It is a bright, near-fine copy (minor rubbing at the tips, one small mark on the fore-edge of the leaves) -- quite uncommon in this condition. Eckel pp 64-5.
Seller: Sumner & Stillman [ABAA], Yarmouth, ME, U.S.A.
Price: US$525.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Hardcover, original green cloth stamped in black and lettered in gold. 96 pages. Printed in the Vest-Pocket Series, with their offerings printing in red on end-papers. A short play by Dickens, in collaboration with Mark Lemon, first performed in 1851 and which featured the author and Wilkie Collins in the cast. First edition thus [first American edition], the original edition being published in 1851 and privately printed. A very nice copy of this diminutive book with only the slightest incidental rubbing to cloth. No previous ownership marks, writing or marking. Hinges sound and cloth clean. This copy in green cloth, also issued in red cloth, albeit no priority cited. A very good+ copy of an increasingly scarce title. Podeschi B215; Eckel p. 165. Size: 24mo - over 5" - 5¾" tall
Seller: Great Expectations Rare Books, Staten Island, NYC, NY, U.S.A.
Dickens, Charles. Mr. Nightingale's Diary; A Farce in One Act.. James R. Osgood, Boston, 1877.
Price: US$576.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: Bound in original green cloth decorated in black, lettering gilt on front cover and spine, advertisements on endpapers. Vest Pocket Series. First published in 1851.
Seller: James & Mary Laurie, Booksellers A.B.A.A, Minneapolis, MN, U.S.A.
Price: US$622.14 + shipping
Description: The second, but earliest obtainable edition, the original printing of 1851 being only known in a handful of copies. 12mo (12 x 8.5cm). pp. [1-5],6-96. With F.W. Pailthorpe's frontispiece, which was issued as an extra illustration for the work and rarely seen, in two states, coloured & uncoloured, as in the Church copy. Later 19th C full morocco, gilt, teg, by Grieve of Edinburgh, which is lightly rubbed. The cloth spine & covers bound in, plus the publisher's adverts which formed the endpapers. Vg. [Eckel 164; Podeschi B215; Kitton 213; Grolier 174; Church 365]
Seller: Colin Page Books, Storrington, United Kingdom
Dickens, Charles. MR. NIGHTINGALE'S DIARY: A Farce in One Act. , 1877.
Price: US$850.00 + shipping
Description: Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1877. Original terra-cotta cloth decorated in black. First "Collectible" Edition of this play first performed in 1851. We say first "collectible" because there are only four known copies of the original 1851 pamphlet; supposedly a fifth, from which Osgood printed this edition, was destroyed in the Boston fire of 1879. This is a volume in the publisher's "Vest Pocket Series," so named for its diminutive size (a second Dickens "comic burletta" was published in this series the same year -- IS SHE HIS WIFE?). This copy is terra-cotta in color; others are green, without priority. It is a bright, near-fine copy (very slight rubbing at the very tips of the binding) -- quite uncommon in this condition. Eckel pp 64-5. Although not so identified, this copy came from the collection of the major Dickens collector Martin Nason.
Seller: Sumner & Stillman [ABAA], Yarmouth, ME, U.S.A.
Price: US$1500.00 + shipping
Description: Reprint of the extremely rare privately printed edition of 1851. 96pp. 1 vols. 24mo. According to Eckel, "there are only three known copies traceable" of the original edition of this little farce which Dickens wrote with Mark Lemon, editor of Punch, for the Guild of Literature and Art, and that the pamphlet from which this reprint was made was destroyed in the Boston fire of 1879. This is an exceptionally fine copy of the reprint which is, in itself, becoming very scarce. Eckel, pp. 165-66 Full olive-green morocco, gilt cornerpieces of three-leaf clover, gilt spine, raised bands, gilt turn-ins with floral sprays, t.e.g., by WOSFORD. Fine copy Reprint of the extremely rare privately printed edition of 1851.
Seller: James Cummins Bookseller, ABAA, New York, NY, U.S.A.