BEAUTIFULLY BOUND SET OF THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS

(DICKENS, Charles) FORSTER, John. The Life of Charles Dickens. Three volumes. WITH: (DICKENS, Mamie and HOGARTH, Georgina, eds.) The Letters of Charles Dickens Edited by His Sister-in-Law and His Eldest Daughter. Three volumes. London: Chapman and Hall, 1880-82. Six volumes in all. Octavo, contemporary full red morocco, ornately gilt-decorated spines and corners, raised bands, top edges gilt. $4200.

First editions of both Forster's Life of Charles Dickens and Mamie Dickens' edition of her father's Letters, beautifully bound by Bradstreet's, with frontispiece portrait in each volume.

Noted journalist, critic and the first professional biographer of 19th-century England, John Forster was uniquely suited to pen Dickens' biography: he read, in manuscript or proof, almost everything Dickens ever wrote, and was the writer's close friend and literary executor. He was also godfather to Dickens' daughter Mamie, who co-edited The Letters. Dickens' death in 1870 prompted Forster to write what would become his last finished biography. Several volumes with advertisements bound in at rear.

Interiors generally clean and fine, occasional light foxing to frontispiece portraits. A bit of minor restoration to spine heads of two volumes only. Beautifully bound and in excellent condition.