The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club

Name: The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club
SKU: 29389
Author: Charles Dickens

London, Chapman and Hall, [November] 1837.

1 vol. (135 x 220 mm) of XIV, 1 frontispiece, 1 engraved title, [1] f. and 609 p. Marine-blue calf, smooth spine richly decorated with gilt and blind fillets, blind-tooled decoration on the covers with irons and florets, gilt fillet and double fillet border, roulette on the edges, inner lace border (binding signed by Charles de Samblanx).

First edition, illustrated with 43 plates, including a frontispiece and an engraved frontispiece-title, by Robert Seymour and Hablot K. Browne, known as “Phiz.”

Chapman and Hall first issued The Posthumous Papers in 19 parts between March 1836 and October 1837. This volume displays several characteristics of the first printing and represents an early impression, the printing history having been complex and repeatedly corrected (some ten states are recorded). The engraved title is in the second state, with “Tony Veller” above the porch, the first state reading simply “Veller.”

Written when Dickens was only twenty-four, the work launched him into a fame from which he never descended. Its reception was immense and immediately popular: it was said at the time that only the Bible and the works of Shakespeare exceeded the Posthumous Papers in the number of copies in circulation.

A fine copy, handsomely bound by Charles de Samblanx, one of the finest Belgian binders of the early twentieth century.

Copy of the first edition, in an early issue: the plates bear no captions; the first 27 have pagination at the foot of the page, the following ones have none and appear to be before the letter. The volume does not contain the two plates engraved by R. Buss, which were removed from the edition except in a small number of copies from the beginning of the print run. The following textual errors are otherwise present (p. 260, line 29: holding; p. 341, line 1: inbe-licate; p. 342, line 5: S. Veller; p. 43, second paragraph under chapter V, line 1: ruined wall in the singular); the signature of gathering “E” is present, paginated 26 — that is, the third state, the first two [unsigned] being very rare.

#29389

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