128 pages, 10 plates. Blue cloth cover with gilt title and two sketches of Dickens playing with Mamie on the front board. The bottom half of the the sketches are covered by a "Mullen's Library" sticker. There is a blue crayon number on front end paper and both hinges are partially exposed. The tissue paper protecting the Dicken's frontispiece is torn at the head. There is a faded "Coroit Free Library" stamp on page 82 and on the penultimate publicity page. The back board is rubbed, the title on spine faded. and the pages rough cut, in places unevenly. This has no impact on the print. Finally the inner edge from page 112 -to 119 is foxed and pages 120 and 121 have minor ink staining which could even be a printer's fault. A much better than good only copy. No publishing date, 1896 "The official biography of Charles Dickens (1812-70) was published in 1872-4 by his close friend and literary executor John Forster, and has been reissued in this series. Of the many other memoirs and reminiscences of the great novelist, this book by his favourite daughter Mary (1838-96), known as Mamie, is perhaps the least familiar. Published in 1896, shortly after her death, it gives a loving picture, based on her own memories, of the person whom she held 'in my heart of hearts as a man apart from all other men, as one apart from all other beings'. Mamie, who had taken Dickens's side during the separation from his wife, and acted effectively as his housekeeper at Gad's Hill, had compiled an edition of her father's letters with her aunt Georgina Hogarth, and this second act of piety gives an idyllic - perhaps too idyllic - account of daily life with Dickens." (Trove)