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DICKENS (CHARLES) Great Expectations, 3 vol., FIRST EDITION, Chapman and Hall, 1861 image 1
DICKENS (CHARLES) Great Expectations, 3 vol., FIRST EDITION, Chapman and Hall, 1861 image 2
DICKENS (CHARLES) Great Expectations, 3 vol., FIRST EDITION, Chapman and Hall, 1861 image 3
Lot 96

DICKENS (CHARLES)
Great Expectations, 3 vol., FIRST EDITION, Chapman and Hall, 1861

10 – 20 March 2025, 12:00 GMT
Online, London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £5,632 inc. premium

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DICKENS (CHARLES)

Great Expectations, 3 vol., FIRST EDITION, fifth impression ("Fifth Edition"), publisher's blue blind-stamped cloth, spine stamped in gilt, 8vo, Chapman and Hall, 1861

Footnotes

A good copy of the first edition, fifth issue of "the story that for many critics (and for many 'common readers' too) represents the very highest reach of Dickens's art as a novelist... this masterfully structured and brilliantly written story of money, class, sex, and obsessive mental states with, for the first time ever in Dickens's major fiction, a protagonist who is unambiguously working-class" (ODNB).

Smith notes that the first impression appeared on 6 July, "followed by four other so-called editions (actually issues) on August 5, August 17, September 21, and October 30. These first five issues were probably printed at a single impression and published with altered title-pages to imply and encourage rapid sale". The fifth issue has retained most, but all, the printing flaws of the first issue.

The publication of Great Expectations as a three volume set was unique within Dickens's works, designed to cater for the growing library trade, with the majority of copies destined for Mudie's circulating library, explaining its rarity in good condition.

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