Dickens, Charles | First edition of one of Dickens' most beloved works

Dickens, Charles

Great Expectations. London: Chapman and Hall, 1861

3 vols., 8vo. (195 x 120 mm). Title to each volume, with no edition statements; lacking advertisements at the end of Vol. III, a few stray spots, a few instances of minor marginal fingersoiling. Full red morocco, bound by Zaehnsdorf, covers with gilt rules, spines with raised bands in six compartments, second and third gilt-lettered, other elaborately gilt, inner dentelles gilt, top edges gild; some rubbing to extremities, joints weak with the upper joint of Vol. III nearly detached, front free endpaper of Vol. III detached.

First edition in book form, handsomely bound by Zaehnsdorf.

“Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day."

"Great Expectations … is altogether something different. It did not come from research or the theatre but out of a deep place in Dickens's imagination which he never chose to explain … . It is set, like so many of his books, in the period of his own childhood and youth … . Great Expectations is not a realistic account of how the world was but a visionary novel, close to ballad or folk tale … . The story begins in terror …" (Claire Tomalin, Charles Dickens. A Life 310).

REFERENCE

Eckel 91-93

PROVENANCE

Phoenix Ingraham (bookplates to front pastedowns)