First Edition in Book Form
Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. With Forty-Three Illustrations, by R. Seymour and Phiz.
London: Chapman and Hall, 1837.
First edition in book form. Octavo (8 3/8 x 5 1/8 inches; 212 x 130 mm). [4], xvi, 609 pp. Including the half title. With forty-three inserted plates by Seymour, Buss and 'Phiz'. With the Seymour and Buss plates, and with the 'Phiz' plates from early steels. Frontispiece and engraved title in the first state. None of the illustrations are captioned but all are signed. With all of Smith's first issue points except for page 341-342 in variant "B" with the misspellings but with "S.Veller".
Bound by Morrell in full 20th-century red morocco. Boards triple-ruled in gilt. Spine stamped and lettered in gilt. Edges ruled in gilt. Gilt dentelles. Top edge gilt. A small spot on front board. Top of spine with a sliver of leather missing. Some plates with some toning, mainly along outer margins. Overall a very nice copy.
"From a literary standpoint the supremacy of this book has been... firmly established... It was written by Dickens when he was twenty-four and its publication placed the author on a solid foundation from which he never was removed.... It is quite probable that only Shakespeare’s Works, the Bible and perhaps the English Prayer Book, exceed "Pickwick Papers" in circulation" (Eckel, 17). "Never was a book received with more rapturous enthusiasm than that which greeted the Pickwick Papers!" (Allibone I:500). Pickwick would be the first volume in which Dickens was acknowledged as the author, rather than using his pen name, "Boz."
Gimbel A15. Hatton and Cleaver. Smith, Dickens, I, 3.
HBS 68603.
$2,000.
Price: $2,000.00
Item #68603