Lot 281

SALEROOM NOTICE: Please note Volume 1 and 3 First edition, first issue, volume 2 First edition, third issue ["Third Edition" on volume 2 title]. Dickens, Charles

Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs

Auction: 14 February 2018 at 10:00 GMT

£5,750

Description

Great Expectations. London: Chapman and Hall, 1861. 3 volumes, 8vo, Volume 1 and 3 First edition, first issue, volume 2 First edition, third issue ["Third Edition" on volume 2 title], 32pp. advertisements dated May 1861 at end of volume 3, publisher's maroon embossed cloth, recased, covers somewhat faded and discoloured, paper label for Marshall's British & Foreign Public Subscription Library to upper cover of volume 1, new endpapers, a few spots and stains

Footnote

Note: Volume 1 and 2 have most of the first issue points generally accepted by bibliographers up to Smith as being indicative of a first issue, namely: Volume 1: comma present after 'House' p.344; 52:15 'f' in 'of' complete; 93.1 'b' in 'by' complete; 84.6 'recal'; 160.12 'f' in 'of' complete; 246.23 'how' complete; 299 last line comma complete; 311.8 full stop after 'other' faint; volume 2: 162:21 'their' for 'her'; 245:1 close spacing; 333:2 'recal'; 350:1 'recal'; volume 3: 37:25 'raving' instead of 'starving'; 132:23 'recal'; 145.1 'but' for 'was'; 150:4 'led' for 'lead'; 204:9 'befal'; 322:15 'downfal'.

The sheets were printed from stereotype plates which caused flaws in the type as printing progressed. The first issue had appeared on 6 July, and second, third and fourth issues--also termed "editions" on the title pages--on 5 August, 17 August and September 17 respectively. Walter E. Smith, in Dickens in the Original Cloth, p.103 notes that "...the first five issues were probably printed at a single impression and published with altered titlepapges to imply and encourage a rapid sale...The genuine second edition was the one-volume `Library Edition' which Chapman and Hall published in 1862...". All these issues were issued in identical bindings of violet wavy-grain cloth.