Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$452.44 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: pp: [iii] iv-v[1] [1]2-49. FIRST EDITION. Burgundy leather boards bordered in gilt, title stamped in gilt, marbled endpapers, frontispiece, and two plates by H.K. Browne (Phiz). One of many pieces written by Dickens (under the pseudonym of Timothy Sparks) satirizing the efforts of Government to legislate behaviour among the working classes. Gimbel B30
Seller: MAPLE RIDGE BOOKS, UXBRIDGE, ON, Canada
Price: US$999.00 + shipping
Description: First Edition. Duodecimo, printed wrappers, 49, [iii blanks] pp. Four plates. Good. At some point the spine was professionally reinforced; even so, the front cover has become detached; otherwise clean and tight, in cloth chemise and morocco & boards slipcase that shows some wear. Literature, British Literature, English Literature, Charles Dickens. zxxsl
Seller: Lighthouse Books, ABAA, Dade City, FL, U.S.A.
DICKENS, Charles) Sparks, Timothy. Sunday Under Three Heads. Chapman & Hall, London, 1836.
Price: US$1500.00 + shipping
Description: 4 illustrations by Phiz. 16mo, full red crushed morocco binding by Riviere with elaborate gilt spine & dentelles. London: Chapman & Hall, 1836. First Edition. With the bookplates of Julius Franke & Walter Chrysler. The original wrappers have not been bound in, and there are a few light penciled parentheses in the margins, but otherwise a pristine copy of this rare pseudonymous political pamphlet in support of the working mans freedom on the Sabbath.
Seller: Argosy Book Store, ABAA, ILAB, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$1560.00 + shipping
Description: 175 x 115 mm. (6 7/8 x 4 1/2"). v, [1], 49 pp. Extremely pleasing red crushed morocco, gilt, by Zaehnsdorf, covers with French fillet border, raised bands, spine in compartments with ornate urn-and-floral-spray centerpiece, gilt titling, turn-ins with gilt floral roll, top edge gilt, other edges untrimmed. Original pictorial wrappers bound in. Title page and illustrated wrapper with three small woodcut heads, three plates with guards, all by H. K. Browne. Title page with Charles Dickens' name faintly written in ink beneath "Timothy Sparks" in a 19th century hand. Eckel, pp. 102-03. âFront joint a little worn (though well masked with dye), separation in hinge after front flyleaf, but a solid, lustrous, and very pretty binding; internally fine, with only the most trivial imperfections. This is an attractive copy, complete with original wrappers, of Dickens' little political pamphlet written in opposition to a bill being considered in Parliament that called for stricter Sunday observance. Dickens felt that fresh laws for more rigorous enforcement of restrained behavior were unfair to the poor because their six-day work week left only Sundays for leisure, and he pleaded in the pamphlet for the encouragement of sabbath excursions and harmless amusements. The "three heads" symbolize Sunday "As It Is, As Sabbath Bills Would Make It, [and] As It Might Be Made." Longtime Dickens collaborator H. K. Browne ("Phiz") has provided three scenes imagining the day of rest in each of these situations. The handsome binding is by a 19th century English powerhouse of craftsmen, the Zaehnsdorf bindery founded by Hungarian emigré Joseph Zaehnsdorf (1816-86) in 1842.
Seller: Phillip J. Pirages Rare Books (ABAA), McMinnville, OR, U.S.A.
Price: US$2550.76 + shipping
Description: FIRST EDITION. Half title with engr. front. on verso, vignette title, two plates by Phiz. Contemp. half dark blue morocco, spine up-lettered in gilt. t.e.g. A very nice copy in custom-made red morocco box, titled on spine 'Sunday in London'. This scarce squib was written by Dickens while he was otherwise occupied on Pickwick Papers. Dedicated, somewhat sarcastically, to the Bishop of London, it represents Dickens's opposition to the Sabbatarians, a small but vocal group of politicians and clergymen who wanted to pass into law legislation that prevented recreational activity on Sundays. Dickens, as was his wont, took the part of the working man, advocating harmless Sunday amusements and questioning whether the Bishop 'would ever have contemplated Sunday recreations with so much horror, [had he] been at all acquainted with the wants and necessities of the people who indulged them'. The Sabbath Observances Bill was defeated in the House of Commons while Sunday Under Three Heads was at the printers, diminishing the political necessity of the work. Though well received, it was never reprinted in Dickens's lifetime and the first edition is now particularly scarce; two facsimile editions appeared in 1884. This copy retains an earlier bookseller's invoice (1947), and 2pp notes on the work's publishing history.
Seller: Jarndyce, The 19th Century Booksellers, London, United Kingdom
Price: US$2576.53 + shipping
Description: First edition of the young Dickens' pseudonymous political pamphlet defending the right of the poor man to a free Sabbath, in opposition to a proposed law (put forward by Andrew Agnew, 7th Baronet Agnew of Lochnaw) prohibiting all work and all recreation on a Sunday. This copy differs to the description in Eckel in that there is no "price two shillings" note on the front cover; it matches the other points which distinguish it from the two known facsimiles: the words "Sunday Under Three Heads" beginning page 35, and the spelling "hair" rather than "air" on page 7, line 15. Provenance: Richard Manney, book-label to chemise, sale of his library at Sotheby's New York, 11 October 1991, lot 77; the Lawrence Drizen collection of Charles Dickens, Sotheby's, 24 September 2019, lot 4. Eckel p. 102; Gimbel B30. Small octavo. Original brown wrappers printed in black, rebacked. Housed in a blue cloth chemise within blue morocco slipcase, spine lettered in gilt. With 3 illustrations by Hablot K. Browne, who also designed the heads on the front cover and title page. Further light repairs to wrappers, contents with light creasing, slight stain to top right corner throughout. A very good copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Price: US$7407.51 + shipping
Description: First edition, presentation copy from the publisher, inscribed on the front wrapper "with the publisher's compliments". This is one of only two presentation copies we have traced. The other, inscribed by Dickens to Thomas Mitton, was sold in the Edward Newton sale (lot 491), the catalogue noting "there does not seem to be a record of the sale of any other presentation copy", and was afterwards in the Suzannet sale. The young Dickens's pseudonymous political pamphlet defends the right of the poor man to a free Sabbath, in opposition to a proposed law prohibiting all work and all recreation on a Sunday. "Dickens saw the bill as a piece of class legislation, cynically designed to forbid innocent amusements to the poor on their one day of rest, without interfering with the pleasures of the well-to-do. the pamphlet, which displays Dickens's characteristic sympathy for ordinary people, close observation of actual lives, and vigourous rhetoric, was still at press when [the] Bill was rejected by the House on 18 May, but it received favourable notice in the press and articulates convictions which he held passionately throughout his life" (Schlicke, p. 557). Eckel p. 102; Gimbel B30. Paul Schlicke, ed., The Oxford Companion to Charles Dickens, 2011. Small octavo. Original brown wrappers printed in black, neatly rebacked. Housed in blue cloth chemise within blue morocco slipcase. With 3 illustrations by Hablot K. Browne (Phiz), who also designed the heads on the front cover and title page. Slight tape residue to front endpapers. A very good copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom