The Collection of Victor Niederhoffer part II (1640) September 19, 2019 EDT, Main Floor Gallery Lot 44 Estimate: $1000 - $1500 (plus Buyer's Premium) [Literature] [Dickens, Charles] (Browne, Charles Farrar) Artemus Ward's Lecture. (As delivered at the Egyptian Hall, London.) Edited by his Executors, T.W. Robertson & E.P. Hingston. With Numerous Illustrations from the Panorama London: John Camden Hotten, 1869. First edition, first printing. Square 8vo. With frontispiece portrait of the author and other illustrations. Publisher's original gilt-stamped green cloth, beveled boards, all edges gilt, front hinge cracked and partially separated from text block, rear hinge starting, corners bumped, spine ends scuffed, other light scattered wear; heavy foxing to title page, frontispiece, and first few leaves, light foxing scattered throughout. 4pp. publisher's ads following text. Charles Dickens's copy with his armorial book plate and his Gadshill Place library label on the front pastedown; also with a later owner's bookplate on the front free endpaper recto, which bears a manuscript note, "This book was bought on 5th of December 1878 at the Southeran's sale of Dickens' library." Charles Farrar Browne (1834-1867) known as Artemus Ward, was a popular humorist, both as writer and performer who developed a rich vernacular American style, was Abraham Lincoln's favorite contemporary writer, and came to be one of Mark Twain's closest friends. BAL 1533, "This is bibliographically one of the most extraordinary books of the 19th (or any other) century. The publisher attempted by means of varied type to indicate the rise & fall of the lecturer's voice. The illustrations pose a problem in their own right...The signature collation is almost incredible...".