Dickens, Charles | "in a hundred points immeasurably the best of my stories"

Property from the Workman Collection

Dickens, Charles

The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. London: Chapman and Hall, 1844

8vo (224 x 142 mm). Half-title, frontispiece, second vignette title signed "Phiz fecit" with reversed "100£" on signpost (Smith's state 1, no priority), and 38 other illustrations by H.K. Browne ("Phiz"), 14-line errata on p.xv as usual; small marginal repair to lower corner of frontis, a few instances of scattered spotting, otherwise very clean internally . Original blue diagonally-ribbed cloth, upper and lower covers stamped in blind with central oval with sawtooth, maze-like projections, spine stamped in blind and lettered in gilt, pale yellow endpapers; some minor soiling and shelfwear with two or three very minor instances of loss to cloth. Housed in custom blue morocco and marbled paper-covered board clamshell case.

First edition in book form of the novel that Dickens thought "in a hundred points immeasurably the best of my stories" (Forster)

Martin Chuzzlewit was published in monthly parts from 31 December 1842 to 30 June 1844 (see previous lot), and this first book edition appeared on 16 July 1844. This is the great transitional novel that "leads from the dazzling farce and comedy of humours ... and the picaresque pleasures of the early fiction to the complex, resonant, carefully planned and structured masterpieces of Dickens's later years." (Michael Slater, ODNB).

REFERENCE:

Eckel 71-73; Smith I:7