CASTLE RICHMOND. A Novel. In Three Volumes

1860. [one of Trollope's scarcest] London: Chapman & Hall, 1860. Original blind-stamped dark green cloth.

First Edition of this novel sited in Ireland, during the famine of 1846-1847. The author later wrote of it in his autobiography, This novel... is of itself a weak production. The characters do not excite sympathy. The heroine has two lovers, one of whom is a scamp and the other a prig... Trollope had begun writing it when George Smith (of Smith Elder) asked for an English tale to serialize in the new Cornhill Magazine, so the author laid it aside while he wrote FRAMLEY PARSONAGE. When he then returned to finish it, the publisher must have been in a great hurry to get it to press, as evidenced by the sloppy editing. CASTLE RICHMOND has two distinct issues -- a first issue with many misprints (some 43 of which Sadleir identifies), with an ad catalogue dated February 1860, and a second issue with the errors corrected, with an ad catalogue dated May 1860 (the month in which the book was actually published). The grey-purple cloth bindings of the two issues are also slightly variant. Some copies of each (or mixed) issue are also to be found in a secondary green binding, without ads. This is such a set: though in the secondary green binding, the sheets are almost entirely first issue -- with 41 of the 43 first-issue points, the outliers being on Vol I p. 211 and on Vol II p. 25. This is a strange occurrence: if first issue sheets were succeeded by second issue sheets, why were some first issue sheets still around to be put in a secondary binding? Sadleir reported that he had heard of "more than one" such copy, adding that "Possibly a residue of uncorrected (i.e. superseded) sheets were found and jobbed in secondary cases." This is a near-fine set, with only slight wear at the foot of the spines and a few small faint spots on the Vol I front cover; the spine gilt is bright except for the "VOL. I.", the original pale-yellow endpapers are clean and atypically intact (with the appropriate "Bone & Son" label in Vol I), and the leaves are free of foxing. Sadleir ranks CASTLE RICHMOND very high in scarcity among Trollope's novels -- in fact the first issue is third scarcest among all of them, behind only THE MACDERMOTS and DOCTOR THORNE (we've had only one set in grey-purple cloth -- which sold at $7,750.00 despite being the second-issue text). Sadleir (TROLLOPE) 10. Housed in a handsome full-morocco clamshell case.