[WHITE (Charles).]. Almack’s revisited. “The proudest of them all shall hear of it.” In three volumes. Saunders and Otley, Conduit Street, 1828. Lge.12mo; pp.[viii (half-title, title, Advertisement leaf, and leaf bearing authorial note, all printed on the rectos only)]+384; [iv]+336; [iv]+368; quarter pale drab paper, saxe blue boards, paper spine label; a.e. uncut. Neat, almost invisible restorations at head of two spines; first and last few leaves foxed in each volume; otherwise a very nice copy.

GB £220.00

US $360.80

The first edition under this title, and apparently the first revised edition of a novel published earlier the same year as ‘Herbert Milton’. Sadleir, 3315, records the novel under the latter title, saying that “p.(iii) carries an ‘Author’s Note’ stating that this book was originally written under the title ‘Almacks’ [sic], but was retitled ‘Herbert Milton’ before publication in order to avoid confusion with M. Spencer Stanhope’s novel. . . . The book was re-issued in the same year under yet a third title ‘Almack’s Revisited’ with new prelims. consisting [in volume one] of advert. leaf, half-title and title, but retaining the Author’s Note as in the first edition.” The ‘Author’s Note’, if so headed in the Sadleir copy, is not so in this, whilst the ‘Advertisement’, which precedes it, is avowedly written by a publisher’s Editor in the absence of the author. Wolff, 7172, records, without giving a collation, a copy of ‘Almack’s Revisited’, bound up for a ducal library, without the prelims., which, following Sadleir, he describes as “a reissue in the year of first publication of the novel published as ‘Herbert Milton’, and originally called ‘Almacks’ [sic], but never so published.” Now in the present copy the headlines throughout read ‘Almack’s Revisited’, which would seem to rule out any possibility that it is in fact a simple re-issue of the original sheets. Moreover, the collation of the Sadleir copy is given as: [iv]+384 (R12 adverts.); [iv]+328; [iv]+368 (R4 adverts), which suggests that the present copy is not merely a reprint of the first, but has been, and perhaps considerably, revised. The second note would appear to be that referred to by Sadleir, and refers to the first change of the book’s title and the alteration of some of its scenes ‘familiar from observation’: but a further misfortune was to overtake the book, and the editorial Advertisement reads: “In consequence of the singular coincidence of another Work having appeared almost at the same moment with the present, under a title so similar as to occasion each to be mistaken for the other, the Editor under whose care this work has been conducted through the press, not having the opportunity of consulting the Author, has thought it necessary, as the only course left open to him to prevent confusion, to restore to it its original title, with such a distinction as will, he hopes, prevent the possibility of all future misapprehension.” We hypothesise that White wrote the present novel under the title ‘Almack’s’ during 1826, and submitted it to Saunders and Otley, who informed him that they were in course of publishing another novel with the same title; that the present work was then re-titled ‘Herbert Milton’, the alterations made and White’s disclaimer of plagiaristic intent added as a safeguard to his reputation — but that another novel was published by a different firm contemporaneously with this with a title so similar to the new one that the publishers felt unable to proceed; and that, the author being absent, it was thought the only title it was possible to adopt was the original one, which was thus duly ‘restored’ to it, but ‘with such a distinction as will’ the Editor ‘hopes, prevent the possibility of all future misapprehension’ — i.e., the addition of the word ‘revisited’. We can only assume that the revisions, if revisions there are, had already been submitted to the publisher before the further clash of nomemclature occurred. Given its ill-starred nativity, it is a matter of some interest that this novel, under the name ‘Almack’s Revisited’, was to become White’s key title and that by which the authorship of most of his future productions was indicated.
Ref: CRT803299