"HUMAN LIFE TOUCHED BY MAJESTY AND PURPOSE": FIRST EDITION OF DICKENS' DOMBEY AND SON, IN THE ORIGINAL PARTS, WITH ALL ADVERTISEMENTS PRESENT

DICKENS, Charles. Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son, Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation. With Illustrations by H.K. Browne. London: Bradbury & Evans, 1846-48. Twenty parts in nineteen. Octavo, original green printed paper wrappers. Housed in custom cloth chemise and half morocco slipcase. $5500.

First edition, first issue in scarce original parts of Dickens' novel of "Pride," with 40 etchings by Hablôt Knight Browne ("Phiz"), including the famous first "dark plate." An excellent copy in the original parts, with all of the advertisements called for.

For its inclusion of fairy-tale themes and the much discussed demise of Paul Dombey, Dombey and Son "has a sense of the numinous, is more profoundly touched by the sense of last things, than any of Dickens' previous novels. It is larger in conception, so that human life is seen in terms of its beginning and its end, so that grief and forgiveness become more powerful forces within it… Dickens is aware of its status as art and provides here a simulacrum of human life touched by majesty and purpose" (Ackroyd, 526). Dombey and Son "was well received by its readers, and is considered to be the first novel that reflects Dickens's artistic maturity… Dickens told his first biographer, 'It was to do with Pride what its predecessor [Martin Chuzzlewit] has done with Selfishness" (Schlicke, 280). Dombey and Son contains the first of Browne's so-called "dark plates" ("On the dark Road," in part 18), created by the engraver's lining machine and roulettes that tint the etched plate so as to heighten the contrast between black and white (Johannsen, Phiz, 309). First-issue text, with the following first-issue points: page 284 with "Toot's Delight" mentioned twice instead of "Toot's Joy"; page 324 with "Capatin" on the last line; page 426 with blank space at the beginning of line 9; and two-line errata slip in the preliminary pages at the rear of Part 19/20, rather than eight. Text, preliminaries, and illustrations are all present, as are all wrappers. All advertisements called for are present. Hatton and Cleaver, 227-250.

Only mild foxing to several plates, text generally clean. 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 parts in the original wrappers, quite scarce and desirable with all advertisements.