AN OLD MAN-OF-WAR'S-MAN'S YARN. Dedicated (by kind permission) to Charles Dickens, Esq. An Actual Incident (Never Before Narrated) of the Expedition of the Late Sir John Franklin. With Reminiscences of Eighteen Hundred and War Time.

First edition, first printing. Publisher's original green cloth with titles in gilt to the upper board. All edges gilt. 32pp. A very good copy, the binding square and firm with some light marking to the boards. The contents with a little cracking in places and a touch of occasional light foxing are otherwise in very good order and clean throughout, remaining free from any previous owners' inscriptions or stamps.

In his preface, Gooch explains that this semi-fictional narrative was based upon a conversation with an old man whom he had encountered outside Ramsgate. The old man's two sons had been on board the Erebus with the Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin when the expedition had infamously disappeared, never to be heard from again. Gooch dedicated the work to Dickens, apparently having appealed to him directly after George Cruikshank had refused to introduce the two men. A curious and uncommon title, having only seemingly appeared at auction once (The Kenyon Starling Library of Charles Dickens, Christies, 2008) and with only four copies listed in Copac (BL, Cambridge, Oxford, Nat. Lib. Scotland). (Yale/Gimbel H210).