Author: Dickens, Charles [1812 - 1870]; Collins, Wilkie [1834 - 1889] - Inspiration. Sly, Joseph
Title: The BRIDE And BRIDAL CHAMBER; Extracts from "The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices," by Mr. Charles Dickens.; Presented by Joseph Sly, King's Arms Hotel, Lancaster. Relating to Mr Charles Dickens's Visit to Lancaster. [Wrapper title]
Description: Lancaster: Printed by G. C. Clark, Gazette Office, 1866. 1st Edition (Gimbel B250). Original publisher's printed drab grey paper wrappers, sewn. [2], 56, [2] pp. Extracts from Lazy Tour, pp. [3] - 26. Advert last page. Frontispiece. Wood engraving opposite p. 47. 16mo. 5-9/16" x 3-7/16. Wear, soiling & chipping to wrappers, rear wrapper becoming detached. Period pos to inside front wrapper ["A. Buckle / September 13th, 1867"]. Bookplate ["Robert Washington Oates"] to initial blank. An About VG copy of this rare piece of Dickensiana. T.p. reads: "King's Arms Hotel, / Lancaster. / [single line rule] / Extracts / From / Household Words, / Relating to Mr. C. Dickens' Visit to Lancaster; / with Extracts from the / Official Illustrated Guide / of the Lancaster & Carlisle, Caledonian and / Edinbuirgh & Glasgow Railways; / Also, Description of the Torch-Light Procession / in Lancaster, / on the Marriage of H. R. H. the Prince of Wales, March 10th, 1863." "Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices" by Dickens & Wilkie Collins, originally published in Household Words. Extract "from nos. 395 and 396 of the October part, 1857" -- Page [3] Includes: "A Tourist's visit to Lancaster (extracted from the Lancaster 'Gazette' of February 24th, 1866)": pages [55] - 56. [info from OCLC entry 19971209]. In the late autumn of 1857. Dickens and Wilkie Collins started "on a ten or twelve days' expedition to out-of-the-way places, to do (in inns and coast corners) a little tour in search of an article and in avoidance of railroads." Their selection was the Lake District, but the outcome of their expedition was not one article merely but a series of five under the title of The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices, written in collaboration. The two idle apprentices were Francis Goodchild and Thomas Idle, the first name being the pseudonym of Dickens. The travellers were meditating flight at the station on account of Thomas Idle being suddenly filled with "the dreadful sensation of having something to do." However, they decided to stay because they had heard there was a good inn at Lancaster, established in a fine old house; an inn where they give you bride-cake every day after dinner. " Let us eat bride-cake," they said " without the trouble of being married, or of knowing anybody in that ridiculous dilemma." And so they departed from the station and were duly delivered at the fine old house at Lancaster on the same night. This was the King's Arms in the Market Street, the exterior of which was dismal, quite uninviting, and lacked any sort of picturesqueness such as one associates with old inns ; but the interior soon compensated for the unattractiveness of the exterior by its atmosphere, fittings and customs. Being then over two centuries old, it had allurement calculated to make the lover of things old happy and contented. " The house was a genuine old house,' the story tells us, " of a very quaint description, teeming with old carvings, and beams, and panels, and having an excellent staircase, with a gallery or upper staircase cut off from it by a curious fence-work of old oak, or of old Honduras mahogany wood. It was, and is, and will be, for many a long year to come, a remarkably picturesque house; and a certain grave mystery lurking in the depth of the old mahogany panels, as if they were so many deep pools of dark water, such, indeed, as they had been much among when they were trees—gave it a very mysterious character after nightfall." ["Staircase in The Kings Arms, Lancaster". Illustrated London News, 1868 - online copy]. OCLC records just 3 institutional holdings of this publication.

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