DDR: Master Humphrey's Clock by Charles Dickens

Day 1 (DDRD 1,781) September 16, 2022

Master Humphrey's Clock is only 1/2 of a volume in Heron's Centennial Dickens--actually less than 1/2, as it runs from page 303 to 447...so 145 pages, which "should" take 5 days. A nice little canter.

And a few seconds after I opened this volume and flipped to the back (because for some reason the editors put The Mystery of Edwin Drood in the front spot...despite the fact that it appeared thirty years after MH'sC), I heard That Special Sound, and sure enough...

And since I haven't said it lately, let me just say now: Fuck Heron Books, man. I just saw a Complete Centennial Set on Amazon for $668.85 (plus $28.82 delivery!). Man, I sure hope nobody puts down that $700 for this shitty set of self-destructing books. And see there? Just by reading this blog entry you have potentially saved $700. Where else can you get that kind of service?

ANYway...read to page 338 (of 447). It was a strange little bit of story. It starts with a general introduction to Master Humphrey, then goes into how he meets with a friend and they tell stories, copies of which are deposited inside of MH's clock. Then we get to read the first story. In it, we're told about a guy who falls asleep and hears two giant statues who have come to life talking, and one of them tells a story to the other one. So you have a story inside of a story inside of a story. That's a few boxes. It was unlike novelist Dickens, but much like the side stories that Dickens put into his earlier novels. Not great, but interesting. And since I've now only 109 pages to go, I'm feeling like I should knock out another ten pages and get it under 100. We'll see how that goes. 

Strange thing about the text: two of the illustrations were printed sideways. I suppose it was so that they could be printed in larger size to show greater detail, but it annoyed me a bit.

Day 2 (DDRD 1,782) September 17, 2022

Read to page 370. 

BTW, I got yellowly curious and went looking for copies of the original Master Humphrey's Clock...and since this is the 21st century, it only took a moment to find several of them. Apparently it was first issued in weekly installments (88 of them), then in 20 monthly parts* --both of which are available if you have the money.  And they're not cheap. One of the copies ($5,000, 20 monthly parts) is identified as the "TRUE FIRST EDITION." I don't know what that means, so I wrote to the seller--

I was wondering about your designation of this as the "TRUE FIRST EDITION." Wasn't Master Humphrey's Clock first published in weekly parts from 4 April 1840 – 4 December 1841? If so, can you tell me what "TRUE FIRST EDITION" means here?

Thank you.

We'll see if anything comes of that.

I also saw another edition ($3,500, 88 parts) from the same seller which identified this as ""In 88 Monthly parts." Well, clearly that is an error. So I wrote another note asking about that. 

Seems to me that this town needs an enema. Or a proofreader. (🤙)

* Found this information on another website's description of the "book": "Chapman & Hall, London, 1840 First Edition in monthly parts, the second of four original forms of publication of Master Humphrey's Clock. First appearing in 88 weekly parts, this was followed by the 20 monthly parts, then a three-volume edition and finally separately bound volumes." 

(https://www.vialibri.net/years/books/23082155/1840-dickens-charles-master-humphreys-clock-in-88-monthly)

So that answers my first query. I'm still interested to see how (and if) the seller responds. News as it happens.

P.S. Been thinking. According to this version of MH'sC, there are VI parts. Why is that? I'm thinking it's because the magazine started out as a collection of short stories...hence at least some of the VI parts... then shifted to being serializations of The Old Curiosity Shop (April 1840 – November 1841) and Barnaby Rudge (February to November 1841). So I've been trying to find out how many installments there were for each of the novels...but without success. And of course that's complicated by the fact that the two ran concurrently. So I guess I'll never know. There are some clues in The Gutenberg Project's version of MH'sC, but I don't have enough information to put it all together. So さようなら.

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31065739267

P.P.S. Got responses to both of my questions...which turned out to be to the same person / place. (I thought I was sending messages to two different bookstores--hadn't checked the fine print.) The one about the "monthly" designation acknowledged that it should have read "weekly":

Yes, I need to update the wording to weekly parts. Typo error

The other about the "TRUE" was longer:

From: Quintessential Rare Books, LLC. <qrbooks@cox.net>

Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2022 11:39 AM

To: BrotherK@hotmail.com <BrotherK@hotmail.com>

Subject: Re: AbeBooks Customer Inquiry: Title: Master Humphrey's Clock

 

Hi,

I also updated this listing without TRUE First Edition. I talked to one expert dealer on Dickens and asked if the weekly or monthly parts came out first. His answer is that there is NO definitive bibliography that he agrees with that indicates which came out first.

I would like to hear your opinion on it.

Also, if interested in any of the Dickens, I can give you a 20% discount as a first time customer.

James

So Quintessential Rare Books gets my vote for good "customer" service. And btw, I wrote back and said that it would have to be the weekly version first. Cuz...it was a weekly publication. But I did it without the sass.

P.P.P.S.  Forgot to mention that there was a surprise visitor in today's reading: Mr. Pickwick, from The Pickwick Papers. Old Man Humphrey recognized him from the pictures in the novel (how's that for meta-fiction?) and invited him in, and when he left, Pickwick left behind a story, only the first page of which was included in my reading today. 

Day 3 (DDRD 1,783) September 18, 2022

Read to page 400. Pickwick's story was pretty good...though it didn't smack of Pickwick's character at all to me. It was a spooky, witch-y story. Not bad at all, but still...it didn't have the pull of Dickens' novel writing. Oh, and Sam Weller and his father showed up in today's thirty. Sam's dad used the word "dormouse" for "dormant"--"vich had long laid dormouse"--which made me wonder how long writers had been using malapropisms for humorous effect. 

Only 47 pages to go, so of course I'm wondering if I should just go ahead and finish this off tomorrow  and get back to "the main course"--that being the next (chronologically speaking) Dickens novel, which would be Martin Chuzzlewit (1843). We'll see how it goes.

Day 4 (DDRD 1,784) September 19, 2022

Read to page 447, The End. This was an interesting read. Not the best of Dickens, for sure, but the bringing in of characters from the Pickwick Universe, the framing story which surrounded a number of short tales plus two novels, and the melancholy ending all made for a different kind of reading experience. So I'm glad that I took this little "diversion" instead of waiting until I'd finished all of the proper novels in this set. In fact, though it wouldn't be strictly chronological, I was thinking that it might be nice to do "A Christmas Carol"--and maybe other Christmas stories as well--sometime around the turn into December. 

Meanwhile...it's Martin Chuzzlewit time. 

ADDENDUM: I'm still searching for information on the publication of the weekly version of Master Humphrey's Clock. What I really want is to find a table of contents for each issue, but thus far I've had no success in that. In today's searching, however, I did find this bit of information: "Each weekly part was issued as a single folded sheet of 16 pages, 4 of which formed the outer wrapper around 12 numbered pages of letterpress." (HERE)

Also, as confirmation of my "Obviously the weekly issues came first" assertion, there's this: "The publication was issued in these weekly parts, and then at the end of each month four were issued together as a monthly part; finally on completion, the work was issued as a three-volume book in cloth." (HERE) 

DDR Day 1 to 1,000: 13,449 pages read

DDR Day 1001 to Day 2000:
(1) Leviathan 63 days, 729 pages
(2) Stalingrad 27 days, 982 pages
(3) Life and Fate 26 days, 880 pages
(4) The Second World War 34 + 32 + 40 + 43 + 31 + 32 days = 212 days, 4,379 pages 
(5) Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming 10 days, 572 pages
(6) The Great Bridge 25 days, 636 pages

(7) The Path Between the Seas 29 days, 698 pages
(8) Blake: Prophet Against Empire, 23 days, 523 pages
(9) Jerusalem 61 days, 1,266 pages
(10) Voice of the Fire 9 days, 320 pages
(11) The Fountainhead 15 days, 720 pages
(12) The Pacific Trilogy: Pacific Crucible 23 days, 640 pages

(13) The Pacific Trilogy: The Conquering Tide 28 days, 656 pages

(14) The Pacific Trilogy: Twilight of the Gods 31 days, 944 pages 

(15) Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence 13 days, 304 pages

(16) Toward Jazz 18 days, 224 pages

(17) The Worlds of Jazz 13 days, 279 pages

(18) To Be or Not...to Bop 14 days, 571 pages

(19) Kind of Blue 4 days, 224 pages

(20) Kind of Blue: Miles Davis and his Masterpiece: 5 days, 256 pages

(21) Miles: The Autobiography 16 days, 445 pages

(21) A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album: 8 days, 287 pages

(22) Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest 8 days, 304 pages

(23) Living With Music: Ralph Ellison's Jazz Writings 11 days 325 pages

(24) The Pickwick Papers 28 days, 983 pages

(25) Oliver Twist 16 days, 542 pages

(26) Nicholas Nickleby 27 days, 1,045 pages

(27) The Old Curiosity Shop 22 days, 753 pages

(28) Barnaby Rudge 24 days, 866 pages

2nd 1K Total: 21,353 (includes BR) Average Pages Per Day: 27.38 

Grand Total: 34,802. Average Pages Per Day: 19.55

(29) Master Humprhey's Clock __ days, 145 pages