Description

EXCEPTIONAL FIRST EDITIONS OF DICKENS’ VERY RARE FIRST BOOKS: SKETCHES BY BOZ, FIRST AND SECOND SERIES

DICKENS, Charles. Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day People. WITH: Sketches by Boz… Second Series. London: John Macrone, 1836-37. Four volumes in three (as published). Octavo, First Series in original dark green cloth, Second Series in original pinkish-salmon cloth. Housed in a custom chemise and full morocco clamshell box. 

First editions of Dickens’ first and rarest work, illustrated by George Cruikshank, beautiful copies of both Series in the original cloth.

The sketches of urban life that make up Sketches by Boz first appeared in a variety of London magazines. “What impressed his contemporaries as much as the vivacity of his style was the way in which he was able to chronicle the lives of ‘the people’ even at the time they were first struggling to find social and economic expression. This was how he found his great subject, in crowd scenes, in streets, in the lives of people who are uniquely tied together, for better or worse, and who are part of the city which rises like an hallucination through these early sketches” (Ackroyd, 169). “It is an irrefutable fact that the book first published by an author who subsequently attained great eminence is the most difficult to acquire in good condition. This is acutely true of Dickens’ first book” (Smith, 11). Only issue of First Series, with textual errors noted by Smith; first issue of Second Series, without the list of illustrations on page x, and with “Vol. III.” on plates, as called for: “a few early copies of this volume, perhaps suppressed, did not contain a list of illustrations on p. (x) and ‘Vol. III.’ was not erased from the plates” (Smith 2). Sadlier ranked the two Series first and second in his list of comparative scarcities for Dickens in original cloth; nice copies are extremely difficult to obtain. With publisher’s catalog dated December 1836. Smith I, 1 and 2. Cohn 232. Gimbel A1 and A4. Bookplates of noted Dickensian J. Steele of the Coldstream Guards. Steele’s collection was notable for the exceptional condition of copies in original cloth.

Occasional faint soiling to interior, offsetting from plates to text, plate at Vol. III, page 149 with acidification spotting, endpapers of First Series discolored, only most minute soiling to cloth, slight rubbing to extremities, closed tear to head of spine of Second Series. A most exceptional set , substantially nicer than usually found.