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CHARLES DICKENS: THE COLLECTION OF W.H. COLLIS OF LIVERPOOL
Lot 82

DICKENS (CHARLES)
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby... Edited by "Boz", FIRST EDITION IN THE ORIGINAL 19/20 PARTS, Chapman and Hall, April 1838–October 1839

1 December 2021, 12:00 GMT
London, Knightsbridge

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DICKENS (CHARLES)

The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby... Edited by "Boz", FIRST EDITION IN THE ORIGINAL 19/20 PARTS, mixed issue, half-title, engraved portrait frontispiece by Daniel Maclise, 39 etched plates by 'Phiz', most with varying degrees of foxing, some soiling throughout, publisher's blue-green pictorial wrappers, some spines restored, 11 parts with cellophane outer wrapper crudely attached with tape, preserved in red cloth folding box with gilt lettered spine [Eckel pp.64-66; Gimbel A40; Hatton & Cleaver pp.129-160], 8vo, Chapman and Hall, April 1838–October 1839

Footnotes

FIRST EDITION OF 'NICHOLAS NICKLEBY' IN THE ORIGINAL MONTHLY PARTS.

This set has the following issue points: part 4 with "visiter" on p.123, line 17 (first state); part 5 with "letter" on p.160, 6 lines up (second state); the first 4 plates in parts 1 & 2 with publisher's imprints; part 8 plate 16 from third steel ("in" omitted); part 12 plate 23 with "Mr" present; and part 15 plate 29 in second impression. The 'Nickleby Advertiser' front catalogues are present, as are all the back advertisements including the scarce folding 'Amesbury's Supports' one in part 3. Part 11 is without the small slip on yellow paper (described as "non-essential" by Hatton & Cleaver) whilst the advertisement in part 19/20 for 'Hill's Seal Wafer' is present but lacks the attached wafers, as often.

"Dickens was a busy twenty-five year old in 1837. While the final number of Pickwick was quickly being bought up from the bookseller's stalls, and Oliver Twist was highlighting the pages of Bentley's Miscellany, the young novelist signed a contract in November with Chapman and Hall to produce a manuscript for another serial tale beginning the following March. The new work was published in the same manner and form as Pickwick, but Dickens received ten times the amount per number—a healthy £150—as he received for his first novel. The first number, which appeared in April 1838, sold over 48,000 copies.... Nicholas Nickleby clearly shows Dickens's maturing power.... With the good-natured yet temperamental Nickleby providing the story's dramatic center, Dickens learned how to weave parallel plots into a unified structure, completing his transition from journalist to novelist" (Grolier, Essential Parts p.14.)

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