Martin Chuzzlewit; In the Original Parts
Author: DICKENS, Charles [ILLUS: "PHIZ"; Pseudonym of BROWNE, K. Hablot
Title: Martin Chuzzlewit; In the Original Parts
Publication: Lonodon: Chapman &Hall, January 1843-July 1844
Edition: First Edition
Description: Octavo. 22cm. 20 Monthly Parts, issued as 19 with 19/20 being a single larger issue. The majority of the parts, all in their original powder blue wraps, are in very good condition with some light wear to edges and extremities, Part I has some soiling and chipping to the front wrap, mainly confined to the fore-edge, four issues have some noticeable chipping to the spine panels, Parts VI, XI, XII, and XVI have professional restoration or repair work in places, Part XIX/XX has chipping to the spine, and a triangular closed tear to the lower edge of the rear wrap. A few of the plates have some light spotting to the margins, those present in Parts V and X have some slightly heavier foxing but nothing unsightly; internally clean and fresh, if bearing many of the expected eccentricities of any set of Dickens in parts. A very good example, in a tailor made green cloth chemise and box, with a leather title label.
This copy conforms to all the required Hatton & Cleaver elements with a few exceptions or variations: Part II lacks the Marylebone Ironworks advertising slip, Part IV has the plates bound in before the last leaves of the Chuzzlewit Advertiser, Part VII lacks the extremely scarce "Neatly Bound in Cloth" ad slip following the front wrap (Hatton and Cleaver admittedly states this element is only found in 6 known copies), Part XII lacks the "Winter Season" and "Relief Fund" ad leaves from the rear, but has an additional "Pride of London" 32pp. stitched booklet in pink paper wraps, Part XIX/XX has a variant rear wrap (presumably a later issue) where the text advertising the "Illuminated Magazine" specifies a "scarlet binding" not mentioned in H&C.
Otherwise, the vivid details of London life and its mercantile necessities, the repeated concocted dialogs debating the Corn Laws and income tax, and the elaborately illustrated booklets promoting the Panklibanon Bazaar, and the "Rising Wonder" of Professor Browne's "Celebrated and Unique Hair-Cutting Saloon" are all present in their intended places.
Reading Dickens in book form is traditionally a fine method of building an understanding the early Victorian period and its manners, oddities, and obsessions - reading Dickens in parts is rather more like taking a temporary vacation to 1844 London; story and plot are one thing, but once one has learned that an 8 foot Bagatelle table is available from Mechli's Emporium on Leadenhall Street for a mere five pounds to all discerning gentlemen, one may never want to leave.
The meticulous observations of the bibliography are of great academic and historical interest, but in the case of Chuzzlewit they don't indicate any order of precedence, there are no issue points "called for", although some authorities suggest that the inverted Sterling symbol on the vignette title page (present in this copy) might be a first issue point continued, research has suggested that to be unlikely.
Seller ID: 89471
Subject: Bibliography & Book History, Colonization & Empire, Great Britain, Literature Before 1900, Periodicals
