“A CLARITY AND PUNGENCY THAT SURPASSES THE REST OF HIS WORK”: DICKENS’ BLEAK HOUSE—IN ORIGINAL PARTS, WITH VIRTUALLY ALL THE ADVERTISEMENTS PRESENT (SAVE ONE)

DICKENS, Charles. Bleak House. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1852-53. Twenty parts in 19, as issued. Octavo, original blue paper wrappers sympathetically respined. Housed in a custom cloth clamshell box.

Scarce first edition in original parts and wrappers of Dickens’ ambitious, bracing masterpiece, with 40 engraved illustrations by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"), including frontispiece and nine other dramatic "dark plates," as well as vignette title page. An exceptional copy in the original blue wrappers, complete with all advertisements called for, save one.

Structured "with a daring double narrative and centered on institutional satire," Bleak House is "technically [Dickens'] most ambitious novel and widely held to be his masterpiece" (Schlicke, 45). In it, "for the first time [society] is seen as an absurdity, an irrelevance, almost a madness. A dark force from which the real people must escape in order to create another society of their own… [Dickens] had been preparing for this novel all his life and, despite the calamities… which had helped to provoke it in the first place, … was even happy while he was writing it… It might even be said that Bleak House cured the very malaise which was responsible for its composition" (Ackroyd, 649-50). "The Dickens cosmos, his phantasmagoric London and visionary England, emerges in Bleak House with a clarity and pungency that surpasses the rest of his work, before and after" (Bloom, 311). Issued in 20 numbers in 19 parts from March 1852 to September 1853, Bleak House was the first Dickens novel issued in parts in blue paper wrappers; previous works had appeared in green paper wrappers. Ten of the 40 plates are Browne's striking "dark plates," deeply etched with a mezzotint-like chiaroscuro contrast (Hatton & Cleaver, 276-77). The text, front matter, and plates are complete. This exceptional copy is complete with all advertisements and inserts called for in the bibliography, with one exception: Part 19/20 without the single leaf slip of "W. Mott" at the rear. Hatton & Cleaver, 275-304. Gimbel A130. Thirteen parts with contemporary owner ink signature.

Text and plates generally quite clean. A very few instances of minor restoration to edges of fragile paper wrappers, which are also clean and presentable. An exceptional copy in near-fine condition, expertly and unobtrusively respined, most scarce and desirable with virtually all the advertising material.