First Edition in Original Cloth
Tale of Two Cities. With Illustrations by H. K. Browne.
London: Chapman and Hall, 1859.
. A Tale of Two Cities. With Illustrations by H. K. Browne London: Chapman and Hall, 1859.
Full Description:
DICKENS, Charles. BROWNE, Hablot Knight, [illustrator]. A Tale of Two Cities. With Illustrations by H. K. Browne London: Chapman and Hall, 1859.
First edition, mixed issue. Page 134 line 12 showing the misspelling of “affetcionately” and page 238 with triple end quotes, but page 213 shows correct pagination and page 166 with "himself" fully printed. List of Plates without the signature “b”. Octavo (8 5/8 x 5 1/2 inches; 222 x 141 mm). viii, [2], 254 pp. Complete with sixteen plates by Browne ['Phiz'] including frontispiece and vignette title. Without the publisher's catalog bound at the end, but which Smith deems unnecessary.
In the rare publisher’s secondary binding of olive-green cloth. Boards stamped and ruled in blind. Spine lettered in gilt. Pale yellow endpapers. Top edge uncut. Spine a bit sunned. A few stray spots, but generally very clean. Overall a very good copy.
According to Smith (13) regarding the secondary olive green binding " This binding is probably a later state than the red morocco [cloth] one since, in all copies seen with this binding, the List of Plates does not contain signature 'b' (see Hatton and Cleaver, p. 342) and page 213 is not misprinted '113'...Eckel (p. 90) states that copies bound in green cloth are 'very scarce'."
A Tale of Two Cities was first serialized in Dickens’s periodical All the Year Round, from April 30-November 26, 1859. Its appearance in monthly parts (July-December 1859) and book form mark Dickens’s return to his old publishers Chapman and Hall, after a long stay with Bradbury and Evans. The extremely large audience for the novel in All the Year Round, however, left less than the usual demand for the parts issue and, at first, for the book, both of which are now quite rare. This title also marks the author’s final collaboration with Phiz, Dickens’s most evocative and most sympathetic illustrator.
Hatton and Cleaver, 33lff. Smith I, 13.
HBS 69516.
$9,500.
Price: $9,500.00
Item #69516