“NEVER WAS A BOOK RECEIVED WITH MORE RAPTUROUS ENTHUSIASM THAN THAT WHICH GREETED THE PICKWICK PAPERS”: ELEGANTLY BOUND FIRST ISSUE WITH WONDERFUL COSWAY-STYLE PORTRAIT OF DICKENS

DICKENS, Charles. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. London: Chapman & Hall, 1837. Thick octavo, early 20th-century full green morocco gilt, raised bands, elaborately gilt-decorated spine; red morocco onlay to front board, red morocco doublures, Cosway-style portrait mounted on front doublure, watered silk endpapers, all edges gilt; housed in a custom clamshell box.

First edition, first issue, of one of Dickens’ greatest works, with 43 illustrations by Seymour, Phiz, and Buss, in a deluxe Cosway-style binding by Sangorski and Sutcliffe with an inset portrait of Dickens after the painting by Maclise.

“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.” Cosway bindings (named in 1909 for renowned 19th-century English miniaturist Richard Cosway) were the brainchild in 1902 of John Harrison Stonehouse, managing director of London booksellers Henry Sotheran & Company, who struck on the idea of embedding miniature paintings in the covers of richly-tooled bindings. He engaged the famous Rivière bindery to execute his idea in accordance with his own designs. Rivière brought into its employ Miss C.B. Currie with instructions to faithfully imitate Cosway’s detailed watercolor style of miniature painting. These delicate miniatures, mostly portraits, often on ivory, were set into the covers (or sometimes doublures, as seen here) of fine bindings and protected by thin panes of glass. Cosway bindings executed by other than the original collaborators (Stonehouse, Sotheran, Rivière, and Currie) are designated as “Cosway-style” bindings— still amazingly artistic productions. This superb later specimen of the fascinating art of Cosway-style binding was executed by Sangorski and Sutcliffe, with an exquisite watercolor miniature of Dickens at age 27 from a portrait by Daniel Maclise. Originally issued in 20 parts from April 1836 to November 1837. With 43 illustrations by Robert Seymour and Hablot Knight Browne (“Phiz” or “Nemo”), including frontispiece and vignette title page, and with the scarce plates by Robert William Buss at pages 68 and 74, suppressed in later issues. Includes marginal note on page 9 that was suppressed in later issues (Smith I:3). With the following first-issue points: page 341, line 1 correctly reading “inde-licate” and line 5 reading “inscription”; page 342, line 5, with “S. Veller” uncorrected; page 400, line 21, with “this friends”; and page 432, with the “F” in the “OF” of the headline imperfect. With “Directions to Binder”/errata leaf, but without half-title. Smith I:3. Eckel 17-58. Gimbel A15. Armorial bookplates.

Expert paper repairs to verso of frontispiece, not affecting image, and final page, not affecting readability. A fine, elegant copy of an important Dickens first edition.