Case W4
- Extra-Illustrated editions of Johnson & Dickens
James Boswell. The Life of Samuel Johnson. London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons Ltd., 1907; extra-illustrated by A.H. Reed. 10 volumes.
Sometime in the late 1920s, A.H. Reed began working on an extra-illustrated edition of Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson, extending it to ten volumes in maroon spring-form bindings. This was first loaned to the Dunedin Public Library for display in 1928.
Extra-illustrated books are traditionally bound in morocco leather, and Reed’s use of spring-form bindings may indicate that he considered his volumes incomplete. His concurrent interest in autograph letters meant that he could easily open the binding and insert any newly acquired item of interest.
James Boswell. The Life of Samuel Johnson. London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons Ltd., 1907; extra-illustrated by A.H. Reed. 10 volumes.
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John Forster. The Life of Charles Dickens. London: Cecil Palmer, 1928; extra-illustrated by A.H. Reed. 20 volumes. Vol. 14, p. 644 displayed.
In the 1930s, A.H. Reed began to extra-illustrate a copy of John Forster’s biography of Dickens – a practice that involved inserting material relating to the text between the pages. At that time, Reed regularly had been purchasing £5 bundles of about 100 letters from Maggs Brothers of London. In these, Reed found letters by people in the Dickens circle, or by people referred to in Forster’s biography.
Reed’s original gift of 1948 included his extra-illustrated edition of Forster’s Dickens, extended to ten volumes. It was later extended by Reed to twenty volumes in spring-form bindings, containing hundreds of letters, portraits and clippings including letters by Dickens and his family.
John Forster. The Life of Charles Dickens. London: Cecil Palmer, 1928; extra-illustrated by A.H. Reed. 20 volumes. Vol. 14, p. 644 displayed.
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