"THE LOVELIEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE BUT SHADOWS; THEY COME AND GO, AND CHANGE AND FADE AWAY"

DICKENS, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. London: Chapman and Hall, 1844. Octavo, modern three-quarter brown morocco, raised bands. $1500.

First edition in book form of Dickens' picaresque novel of "farce, melodrama, and social criticism," with 40 full-page etchings by Hablôt Knight Browne ("Phiz"), attractively bound.

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). "You know, as well as I," Dickens told John Forster at the time of its publication, "I think Chuzzlewit in a hundred points immeasurably the best of my stories" (Ackroyd, 415). The title page vignette was printed from three nearly identical etched plates produced of the same subject (no priority established). This version has "£100" on the signpost with the "1" blurred, is signed "Phiz," and has six studs on the trunk lid. The vignette title and many of the plates were produced in duplicate and triplicate, with minor variations, but "since all of these plates were contemporary and used simultaneously in the printing of the parts, there is no first state or priority of the illustration" (Smith, 67). Bound with the half title. Eckel, 71-73. Smith I:7. Gimbel A72.

Plate opposite page 14 reinforced along outer margin on verso; occasional staining or thumb-soiling, chiefly marginal, faint toning to plates, as often. An extremely good copy, in an attractive and fine morocco binding.