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INTRODUCTION. xxvii |
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which I bought at the sale of his books in 1878. I thought that the book was written by Mr. .G. A. Sala, but on my writing to him he was kind enough to give me the author's name. It is a very scarce little book, and is now worth three pounds.
Another; which was published in the Puppet Showman's Album, illustrated by Gavarni; was entitled " The Battle won by the Wind, by Ch—s D*ck*ns, author of the Picnic Papers, Barnaby Fudge, etc."
Dramatic versions of the Battle of Life were provided at the Lyceum (on the 21st of December, 1846) by Albert Smith, and at the Surrey (in January, 1847) by the inevitable Edward Stirling. The production of the Lyceum play, which had the advantage of the admirable acting of Mr. and Mrs. Keeley as Britain and Clemency, was supervised by Charles Dickens, and the success of the play was considerable. Mr. F. G. Kitton records a French pike en trois actes, meUe de chant. Par MM. Melesville et Andre' de Goy, founded on the Battle of Life, which was played for the first time at the Vaudeville Theatre, in Paris, under the title "La Battaille de la Vie," on the 3d of September, 1853 ; and some twenty years ago I was myself responsible for an adaptation of the book, which was produced under Mr. John Hollingshead's management at the Gaiety Theatre, with Mr. J. L. Toole as Britain and Miss Ellen Farren as Clemency.
5.—THE HAUNTED MAN AND THE GHOST'S
BARGAIN.
^Before settling down to work on the Battle of Life Charles Dickens had a number of ideas floating through his mind, some one or other of which he was almost inclined to substitute for the notion on which he had at first decided. Among these was the germ of the Haunted Man, of which he wrote from Lausanne : " I have been dimly conceiving a very ghostly and wild idea, which I suppose I must now reserve for the next Christmas book."
In the September of the following year (1847) he sent to Mr. Forster from Broadstairs the first slips of the story, with ■a letter saying that it must be finished in a month if it was |
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