SPLENDID 40-VOLUME ILLUSTRATED LIMITED EDITION SET OF DICKENS' WORKS

DICKENS, Charles. Works. London: Chapman and Hall, 1906-08. Forty volumes. Large octavo, contemporary three-quarter crimson morocco gilt, raised bands, marbled boards and endpapers, top edges gilt. $11,000.

"National Edition" of the works, letters, and life of Dickens, one of only 750 sets, copiously illustrated reproducing original etchings and wrapper designs, 40 volumes handsomely bound.

"Charles Dickens was the last of the great 18th-century novelists and the first of the great symbolic novelists, and in the crushing equilibrium between these two forces dwells the real strength of his art" (Ackroyd, 1081). Dickens "in his own realm has always been unrivaled… His sleepless imagination exaggerated the comic side of everything, and developed the suggestions of reality into humorous idealisms far transcending the proportions of ordinary life" (Baker). With mounted illustrations reproducing the original plates (including plates suppressed before publication) and facsimiles of the original wrappers from the monthly parts. Includes Forster's esteemed Life of Charles Dickens in two volumes.

A few leaves in The Christmas Books with marginal tape repairs, a few corners lightly rubbed. A near-fine, handsome set.