Dickens, The Battle of Life, 1846, first edition, second state

DICKENS, CHARLES

The Battle of Life. A Love Story. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1846

8vo (165 x 104mm.), first edition, 13 illustrations (by Daniel Maclise, Richard Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield, and John Leech), second state of the vignette title page, advertisement leaf at the end, original deep red vertically-ribbed cloth, covers decorated in blind with upper cover pictorially stamped in gilt (two cherubs mounted on wasps above a decorative spray), contemporary ownership signature on endpaper, cream endpapers, all edges gilt, preserved in cream cloth folding box, a touch of spotting to endpapers and preliminaries

A NEAR FINE COPY OF THE SECOND ISSUE OF DICKENS' FOURTH CHRISTMAS BOOK.

REFERENCE:

Smith II:8; Eckel p.121

PROVENANCE:

Albert M. Cohn, armorial bookplate

Albert M. Cohn was the author of the still definitive guide George Cruikshank, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Work Executed During the Years 1806-1877 (London, 1924)