Charles Dickens

First edition of this major novel by Dickens, a critical turning point in his career.

• Charles Dickens (British).
• London: Bradbury and Evans, 1853.
• xvi, 624 pages. 
• Engraved frontispiece and engraved title page, followed by printed title page, and 38 further full-page engravings.
• 1854 owner stamp on front fly leaf. 
• Bound in original blind-stamped olive cloth, gilt-lettered spine, pale yellow coated endpapers, red speckled edges.
• Housed in custom quarter black cloth clamshell box with gilt leather spine label.

Bleak House, published midway through Dickens's career, marks an important moment: not only was Dickens beginning to commit more profoundly to engaging with social issues in his novels, but the book's popular success vaulted him into sales numbers far beyond his contemporaries. It was the book everyone was talking about, and "many of the characters in the book were discoverable as having for their prototypes several of Dickens's friends" (Eckel). Its complexity and structure have long been admired, and it remains key to Dickens's reputation today.

Eckel, The first editions of the writings of Charles Dickens, 78.

Podeschi, Dickens and Dickensiana. A catalogue of the Richard Gimbel Collection in the Yale University Library, A130.