FIRST ISSUE OF LITTLE DORRIT, IN ORIGINAL PARTS
DICKENS, Charles. Little Dorrit. London: Bradbury and Evans, December 1855-June 1857. Nineteen parts (20 numbers). Octavo, original pictorial blue paper wrappers. Housed in a custom cloth chemise and half morocco clamshell box.
First edition, first issue, in the original serialized parts, with cover design and illustrations by Hablot Knight Browne. An excellent copy.
Little Dorrit "is a wonderfully rich novel— rich in ideas, rich in characterization, rich in incident, and written in a richly imaginative prose…many critics regard it as Dickens' masterpiece" (Watts, 108). "So it is that in Little Dorrit Dickens mounts his single most ferocious onslaught against England and English society; against its government, against its financiers, against its artists, and even against its ordinary citizens… In Little Dorrit, money itself is seen to be a faithless and corrupt delusion. Even when the Dorrits become rich, they cannot escape their past. The only hope is to be found in endurance, which was precisely the message [Dickens] was giving to some of his correspondents in the same period" (Ackroyd, 758). Complete with all text, titles, plates, and errata called for in the first issue, including the character name "Rigaud" rather than "Blandois" on pp. 469, 470, 472, and 474, and the subsequent correction slip bound in at page 481 in Number XVI. All numbers with all advertisements as called for by Hatton & Cleaver with the following minor exceptions: without the Bradbury & Evans slip and the four-page "Cyclopedia of Biography" ads at back of Part 9; "The Wreck of the Golden Mary" slip at the front of Part 13; the two-page "Royal Insurance Company" slip at the back of part 19/20. With two sets of the four-page "Dr. DeJongh's" ads in Part 10; the Bradbury & Evans ads in Part 1 are numbered [1], 2-15[16], not [1]-16; the "Theatre Royal" slip in Part 1 is on orange paper, not yellow. Hatton & Cleaver, 305-30. Eckel, 82-84. Yale/Gimbel A140.
Internally clean and crisp, with Parts 19/20 partly unopened; occasional foxing to plates, as almost always. Minor edge-wear to wrappers, with a few small expert paper repairs at edges. A lovely set in exceptional condition.