Bleak House... With Illustrations By H. K. Browne.
London: Bradbury and Evans, 1852-3.
8vo., 20 monthly parts in 19 as issued, 3-24, [1]-32, [1 partial]; 16, 33-64, 8, [8], 4; 16, 65-96, 4, [4], [2], [4]; 12, 97-128, [1], [4], [8], 4; 12, 129-160, 4, [8], [4]; 8, 161-192, [4], [2]; 12, 193-224, 4, 4, 8, [2], 2, 2; 12, 225-256, [2], 2; 8, 257-288, 8, 2, [4]; [1-2 partial], 3-16, [4], 289-320, 8; 16, 321-352, [16], 2, 2, [2]; 16, 353-384, 2, [4], 2; 16, 385-416, [8], 2; 16, 417-488, 8, [2], 2, 2, 4; 12, 449-480, 8, [4], 2, 4; 12, 481-512, 8; 12, 513-544, 4, 2; 8, 545-576, 8, 2; 20, 577-624, xvi, 16, [2], [16], 40 steel engraved plates including frontispiece and title vignette. A made-up set as usual in the original blue printed wrappers with trade advertisements to the inside as well as outside back wrappers, uncut, with a variety of publishers ads on teal, green, pink and white paper bound-in. Lacking a few of the advertisements and slips as always, usual chipping and curling to the edges, minor foxing to plates, otherwise a very good set of all 20 parts with all the text and plates intact and unscathed. Some parts signed "Todd" in ink. Full red morocco pull-off case lettered in gilt. A very good set.
§ First edition in the original parts. “Between the publication of David Copperfield and the writing of Bleak House, Dickens had established a weekly journal which, after much discussion, he called Household Words. he had been writing largely for this new venture, this including his “Child’s History of England,” which ran serial. The result was that, when he fairly got started with Bleak House, he fell ill several times. In a letter he confessed that he was overworked. The new novel was an attack in the abuses of Chancery... An interesting feature is Dickens’s defense of the theory of spontaneous combustion in the preface of the book” (Eckel 78). Hatton & Cleaver 275-304. Item #126423
Price: $4,500.00