[HALIBURTON (Thomas Chandler).]. The Clockmaker; Or The sayings and doings Of Samuel Slick, Of Slickville. Halifax, N.S. [Canada,] Printed and published by Joseph Howe, 1836. Tall f’cap 12mo in half-sheets; half title not called for; publisher’s Advertisement leaf follows title leaf [v. note]; Contents leaf, and final leaf of text, a single inset; pp.vi+221+[i (blank)]; light brown slightly moiré rough cloth, glazed yellow label on front cover printed with main title only within a border of type ornaments; end-papers of thick white wove paper. A couple of small rub-holes in cloth at head of spine, and small chip (2mm) across tail of spine; slight dusting and spotting to covers; paper label darkened, probably by paste action, and rubbed slightly at edges, affecting somewhat the border of type ornaments; back free end-paper neatly renewed with similar paper; a little scattered foxing internally; chip to blank fore-margin pp.37/8, 207/8 and of last leaf; in general, however, a nice copy.

GB £950.00

US $1,558.00

With this, his first book, Judge Haliburton became the first Canadian writer to achieve an international reputation, so much so that: “For a time at least in the mid 19th century, Haliburton and his work had a vogue on both sides of the Atlantic which rivalled that enjoyed by Charles Dickens.” (Fred Cogswell, Dictionary of Canadian Biography, IX, p.352). By its skilful inweaving of humour and narrative with the serious political purpose of effecting reform (admittedly of a conservative kind), ‘The Clockmaker’ appealed to British and American readers, not just to the Nova Scotians at whom it was initially aimed. It quickly became an international bestseller, and remains in print even to-day. In the course of its depiction of Yankee manners and customs, presented through the character of the colourful huckster Sam Slick, it made what has been claimed to be the first use of American dialect in literature, and gave to the language on both sides of the Atlantic numerous phrases that were to survive and pass into the small change of everyday speech: ‘he drank like a fish’, ‘the early bird gets the worm’, ‘it’s raining cats and dogs’, ‘you can’t get blood out of a stone’, ‘as quick as a wink’, ‘six of one and half-a-dozen of the other’, etc. . . As noted in the publisher’s Advertisement the first twenty-one of the thirty-three sketches “originally appeared in the ‘Novoscotian’ newspaper. The great popularity they acquired, induced the Editor of that paper to apply to the Author for the remaining part of the series, and permission to publish the whole entire.” Two further series were to follow, and were first published by Richard Bentley in London in 1838 and 1840 respectively. They are not uncommon, but this first edition of the first series is notably so, Logan, p.157, recording that “The 1836 edition is rarely met with", and Lande, Supplement, describing it as “excessively rare", whilst Sabin, 29684, note, mentions that he had “not seen” a copy of the first edition. There is no copy listed on COPAC, though the British Library has a microfiche. The cloth used for the binding is an unusual one that we would guess of local manufacture rather than being, like most book cloths in the nineteenth century, manufactured in England. Lande, 1814 and s1014; Logan, 157.1; Chittick, 656.3.1, Watters, p.304.
Ref: CRT818808