Dickens, All the Year Round, 1859-68, 19 volume set

DICKENS, CHARLES, EDITOR

All the Year Round. A Weekly Journal. Conducted by Charles Dickens. In which is incorporated Household Words. London: C. Whiting for No.26 Wellington Street (and for Chapman and Hall), Volume I, 30 April 1859 To 22 October 1859—Volume Xix, 14 December 1867 to 6 June 1868

8vo (242 x 155mm.), 19 volumes, including the special Christmas numbers, original green cloth decorated in blind, spines lettered in gilt, yellow, pale yellow or white endpapers, speckled red edges, a few gatherings slightly roughly opened, one or two hinges slightly cracked, minor bumping or wear to edges of binding, very occasional browning or minor spotting to text, BUT STILL AN EXCEPTIONALLY FINE SET

The first nineteen volumes in book form of the first series of All the Year Round, in effect a replacement or continuation of Household Words, which had ceased publication in 1857 in the wake of the scandal surrounding his public separation from his wife Catherine and a dispute Dickens had with the publishers Bradbury and Evans. For this new periodical, which the author wished to have complete control over, Dickens initially proposed the name “Household Harmony”, but his friend Forster had persuaded him that the title might be inappropriate and ill-judged in the light of the public’s knowledge of his recent difficult domestic life. All the Year Round serializes two of the author’s finest later novels, A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations, as well as many other pieces by Dickens, such as his account of the East London Children’s Hospital which appeared in 1868, written after one of his walking tours around the area documenting living conditions and the sterling efforts of a young doctor and his wife to set up a hospital to combat juvenile malnutrition. William Wills worked as assistant editor for many years. Dickens took his son Charley on to the staff in 1868 for the second series of the periodical, and publication continued after Dickens' death in 1870. A third series commenced in 1889, with Charley finally closing it in 1893.

PROVENANCE:

Leonard James Williams, armorial bookplates, occasional pencil signatures on title pages