PHIZ: The Man Who Drew Dickens by Valerie Browne Lester
Presentation copy inscribed to the diplomat Sir John Boyd and dated and signed by the author (the great-great-granddaughter of Phiz) on both the title & preceding pages thus: "For Sir John Boyd* here's [PHIZ] ! Valerie Brown Lester - and here's to the other great Charles - September 2011 This comes to you at the suggestion of my friend Bob Patten, who told me of your admiration for Lever (see p.108)." (the inscription was made in black ink & has gone through to the preceding/following pages; Pimlico 2006 1st paperback ed/1st printing, 269pp., text generally in decent order albeit with browning to pages - and to the page extremities at the very top, side & bottom - and small creases to the top & bottom corners of some of the pages, edge wear to covers/corners/top & bottom of spine with a small crease to the front top right hand corner & a smaller one to the rear bottom left hand corner, bumping/rubbing/scuffing to the bottom & (more so) top of the spine with some marks & scratches on front & rear.
*Sir John Dixon Ikle Boyd KCMG (17 January 1936 – 18 October 2019) was a British ambassador and academic administrator. He was British ambassador to Japan from 1992 to 1996, and subsequently the Master of Churchill College, Cambridge from 1996 to 2006.
'Phiz' - Hablot Knight Browne - was the great illustrator of Dickens' fiction. For over 23 years they worked together, and Phiz's drawings brought to life a galaxy of much-loved characters, from Mr Pickwick, Nicholas Nickleby and Mr Micawber, to Little Nell and David Copperfield. But, from the mystery of his birth onwards, Phiz himself led a life as rich as any novel.
In this vivid, lively memoir - the first full biography, long-awaited by Victorian scholars - his great-great-granddaughter Valerie Browne
Lester tracks the struggles of the abandoned Browne family and follows Phiz's path to marriage and fame, his travels around England and Ireland and work with Dickens, Lever, Trollope and others, and his colourful private life.
Based on a mass of unpublished material, this enchanting book, packed with surprising and delicious illustrations, is a perfect present for all who love Dickens and enjoy the hidden byways of Victorian life.
Valerie Browne Lester (1939-2019) was an independent scholar, writer, and translator. She is the author of Fasten Your Seat Belts! History and Heroism in the Pan Am Cabin (1995), which is a history of Pan American told in the voices of its cabin crew; and Phiz, The Man Who Drew Dickens (2004), a biography of Hablot Knight Browne, Dickens’s principal illustrator (who was also her great-great-grandfather). Her biography of the great Italian printer Giambattista Bodoni (1710-1813) Giambattista Bodoni: His Life and His World was published by David Godine in September 2015.
In addition to her books and her translation of Alain-Fournier’s Le Grand Meaulnes (The Magnificent Meaulnes, 2009), she wrote poetry, plays, and articles, including “A Bird’s Eye View of Nepal,” for The Atlantic Monthly.
Her biography of Clarence Bicknell, Marvels: The Life of Clarence Bicknell, Botanist, Archaeologist, Artist, was published in June 2018. Her final book, The West Indian, is a novel, and was published in March 2019, a few months before she died.
Will ship by Royal Mail 1st Class Signed for, well packaged.
(£5.39/pb)