15 BAUMAN RARE BOOKS “Many Critics Regard It As Dickens’ Masterpiece” 14DICKENS, Charles. Little Dorrit. London, December 1855-June 1857. Nineteen parts (20 numbers). Octavo, original pictorial blue paper wrappers, custom slipcase. $5200 First edition, first issue, in the original serialized parts, with cover design and illustrations by Hablot Knight Browne, with almost all advertisements present. Little Dorrit “is a wonderfully rich novel—rich in ideas, rich in characterization, rich in incident, and written in a richly imaginative prose… many critics regard it as Dickens’ masterpiece” (Watts, 108). Text generally quite clean, only a few plates with minor foxing or faint tidemarks. Parts 1, 5, 6, 9, 10-12, 19/20 neatly respined, a few others with repairs to spine, Part 19/20 with rear wrapper substituted from Part 8 rear wrapper from another copy; a few wrappers with slight edge-wear or creasing, as often. A very good, attractive set, handsomely boxed. “The Best Of My Stories” 13DICKENS, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. London, January, 1843July, 1844. Twenty parts in nineteen. Octavo, original pale bluish-green printed paper wrappers, custom clamshell box. $8500 First edition in original parts of Dickens’ picaresque novel, complete with all advertisements. First issued in 20 numbers from January 1843 to July 1844, Martin Chuzzlewit reflects the disillusionment Dickens felt from a recent trip to the United States, his first American reading tour. As Fielding had sent his Tom Jones to London, Dickens “adopted the same radical expedient of sending his youthful protagonist not merely to London, but to America. The book’s picaresque technique provides him with a large canvas and plenty of opportunity for farce, melodrama, and social criticism” (Philip V. Allingham). Some neat and unobtrusive repairs to several spines, light edge-wear and creasing to fragile paper wrappers, less than often seen. An exceptional copy in the original wrappers, quite scarce and desirable with all advertisements.
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