"A MOB IS USUALLY A CREATURE OF VERY MYSTERIOUS EXISTENCE": FIRST EDITION OF DICKENS' BARNABY RUDGE

DICKENS, Charles. Barnaby Rudge; A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty. London: Chapman and Hall, 1841. Octavo, contemporary full blind-stamped cloth, marbled endpapers and edges. $1400.

First separate edition of Dickens' first historical novel, bound from the original sheets of the serial publication with an added title page.

Barnaby Rudge, which took over five years for Dickens to complete, was centered on the Gordon Riots of 1780, a period of anti-Catholic violence. "He had always been interested in the historical essence of London, that deeply imbued spirit of dirt and misery with which he could bind his own past to that of the city itself, and in these first weeks of composing Barnaby Rudge he visited 'the most wretched and distressful streets' to find images which could move him… To all these scenes and characters he imparts a dream-like quality, London itself becoming 'a mere dark mist—a giant phantom in the air.' The narrative itself is marked by references to ghosts, dreams, phantoms, as if Dickens' own private material was so deeply implicated in the unfolding of the story that he wished to keep it somewhat remote… Dickens continued to compose the story which had been with him so long; a proper novel this time, far more carefully planned than its predecessors, a novel that with its historical sweep might rival comparisons with the works of Scott and which in its depiction of the revolutionary mob would be an attempt to create a quite new effect in English fiction" (Ackroyd, 328). With in-text wood-engraved illustrations by George Cattermole and Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). Originally published with The Old Curiosity Shop in 1840-41 in the weekly serial Master Humphrey's Clock; this first separate edition of Barnaby Rudge was published December 15, 1841. Preface leaf bound in before the title page. Smith 6B. Gimbel A63. Eckel, 68.

Contents clean, back inner paper hinge cracked but holding; mild rubbing and spine toning. A nice copy in contemporary cloth.