OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. In Two Volumes. With Forty-One Illustrations from Designs by Marcus Stone.
Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson & Brothers, n.d.[1865]. 10 pp Vol II ads, undated (though one page cites 1866 as a future date). Original blind-stamped black cloth with gilt vignette on spines.
Second American Edition, which is to say Peterson's two-volume "Uniform Duodecimo Edition." Harper paid for advance rights to serialize this novel and to publish it as an octavo book on 11 November 1865; they also sold their plates to Peterson, in such a way that Peterson was able to publish their sub-edition on the very same day, "probably a few hours after Harper's edition." (Peterson would use these same octavo plates for several years, such as for their 1867 Green Cloth Edition.") But Peterson also created its own duodecimo plates, for publication that very same day of this two-volume, single-column edition, with the plates separately printed -- which was priced at $4.00 compared to $2.50.
Condition appears to be just about fine, but the volumes were professionally recased -- very early on, as the signature and corresponding personal book-label on each front paste-down appear to be from long ago. Smith pp 400-404; not in Podeschi (Yale). Item #15210
Price: $295.00