[DICKENS (Charles).]. Oliver Twist; Or, the Parish boy’s progress. By “Boz.” In three volumes. London: Richard Bentley, New Burlington Street, 1838. 3 Vols., lge.12mo; half-titles in volumes one and two with advertisements on verso, that to volume two dated ‘November 1838’, none called for to volume three, which has instead an integral leaf advertising ‘Bentley’s Standard Library’ the first volume of which is said to be ‘now ready’, the second scheduled for ‘1st Jan’; 4pp. publisher’s inserted advertisements at end of volume one, advertising ‘New works of entertainment Edited by Charles Dickens, Esq. (Boz.)’; engraved frontispiece in each volume, eight additional engraved plates in volume one, six in volume two, and seven in volume three, all by George Cruikshank; horizontally ribbed claret cloth, blocked with an ababesque design in blind on sides, lettered and with short rule, gilt, on spine; a.e. uncut; end-papers glazed yellow. Volume one recased preserving the original backstrip and end-papers, the latter strengthened at gutters with matching paper; cloth of back joint restored in other volumes; front end-paper to volume three torn at fore-margin, without loss; slight chipping or wear to all spines at extremities; light fingering and dusting throughout, and marginal embrowning, or greying to most plates, several of which show also damp-staining to the margins; over-all a good copy only of a rare book, here offered cheaply because of the faults noted.

GB £1,500.00

US $2,460.00

The first state and first issue of text (‘Boz’ instead of ‘Charles Dickens’ on title-page, p.164 in volume three reading ‘pilaster’ rather than ‘pier’; and without the list of illustrations later added to some copies); the first issue of the plates (the ‘fire-side’ plate being bound in opposite p.312 in volume three rather than the later ‘church’ plate); and the very scarce first binding (horizontally ribbed cloth, the spines lettered: ‘OLIVER / TWIST / [short rule] / BOZ. / VOL.I [II; III].’ only, the last two lines in ornamental type, and with no publisher’s imprint at the foot: v. Eckel, p.62 and Carter, ‘Binding Variants’, pp.107-8 and ‘More Binding Variants’, p.7 for a discussion of binding issues). The decision to publish the novel in book form before its serial issue had been completed was taken by Bentley rather at short notice, and Cruikshank had to produce the last plates somewhat hurriedly, so that Dickens did not get a chance to see them before they had been printed for the book. When he did see them, he objected to the sentimentality of the ‘fireside plate’. Also, he took the decision at about the same time that he would no longer publish under the name of ‘Boz’. At his insistence, substitute prelims. were printed bearing his name, and the ‘fireside plate’ was replaced, and copies so altered were on sale by November 16th, within a week of the volumes having been first published. Even before this, however, Bentley seems to have decided that his imprint should be added to the spine, and only the very earliest copies bound appear to have been put up without it, as in the present instance. Eckel did not know of this (Carter A) binding when he produced the first edition of his bibliography in 1913, and had only encountered two copies so bound by the time that he produced his revised edition in 1932 — which gives a fair measure of its scarcity. This copy has been extra-illustrated by the addition of the second issue ‘church plate’, here loosely laid-in at p.312 in volume three. Eckel, pp.59 — 62; Sadleir, 696 and 696a, recording two issues both in fine-diaper cloth with the imprint present on the spines; Wolff, 1808, recording a mixed set, the first two volumes as Sadleir, 696, but with the addition of the list of plates, the third volume as in the present copy. The plates are here bound in to face pp.29, 48, 98, 132, 152, 186, 248, and 302 in volume one; pp.61, 130, 145, 196, 260, and 296 in volume two; and pp.20, 30, 106, 164, 216, 296, and 312 in volume three. As this was evidently one of the first copies issued of this title, it may be of interest to record the errata and typographical flaws noted in it: in Vol.I, p.4, last line: ‘de ar’ for ‘dear’; p.63, l.7, ‘r’ of ‘here’ slightly battered; p.82, l.5, ‘hid eous’ for ‘hideous’; p.252, penultimate line, ‘m’ in ‘Bartlemy’ broken; in Vol.II, p.3, l.10, risen space before ‘silent’; p.15, l.3, risen space after ‘wards’; p.23, l.8, raised comma at end of line; p.40, l.5, raised ‘e’ at end of line; p.41, l.5, raised space after ‘way’; p.42, penultimate line, ‘n’ in ‘heaven’ slightly raised; p.50, l.3, ‘he admournfully’ for ‘head mournfully’; p.62, l.7, raised ‘f’ at end of line; p.65, l.9 of text, ‘e’ of ‘The’ broken; p.78, l.12, second ‘e’ of ‘deemed’ printed faintly; p.108, l.7, ‘h’ in ‘the’ broken; p.114, l.6, risen space after ‘to’; p.132, l.4, risen space after ‘me’; p.137, l.18, ‘h’ of ‘teeth’ lacking; p.144, last line, corner of risen space before ‘Flight!’; p.190, l.17, ‘o’ in ‘cockfighting’ raised; p.198, l.19, ‘t’ raised in ‘it’; p.199, ll.2 and 11, raised ‘r’ at end of line, antepenultimate line, ‘E’ broken in ‘Eng-’, last line ‘King’s’ rather than ‘Queen’s’; p.214, l.10, ‘u’ in ‘house’ broken; p.226, l.6, ‘hat’ for ‘that’; p.240, l.13, raised space between ‘together’ and following semi-colon; p.252, l.13, ‘r’ in ‘from’ printed too heavily; p.259, l.16, raised hyphen at end of line; p.262, l.1, raised space after ‘and’; p.271, l.3, no closing inverted commas at end of line; p.273, l.10, ‘d’ in ‘proved’ broken; p.279, l.5 of text, broken ‘m’ in ‘mind’; p.289, l.11, risen space between ‘Well’ and following question-mark; p.299, last line, ‘strang er’s’ for ‘stranger’s’; in Vol.III, chapter heading, p.24, ‘R’ in ‘RESPECTABLE’ battered; p.25, l.9, ‘e’ broken in ‘sence’ and l.17, risen space after ‘way,’; p.56, l.7, risen space after ‘thou’; p.68, l.2, comma instead of full-stop after ‘redemption’; p.73, last line ‘s’ in ‘see’, ‘e’ in ‘her’, and first ‘e’ in ‘weep’ broken; p.76, antepenultimate line, ‘y’ broken in ‘young’; p.80, l.4, ‘h’ battered at start; p.83, l.14, ‘o’ in ‘moment’s’ broken; chapter heading, p.92, ‘S’ in ‘METROPOLIS’ broken; p.99, l.4, raised space before ‘come’; p.115, l.2 of text, ‘Clay pole’ for ‘Claypole’; p.123, l.13, ‘ascent’ for ‘assent’; p.163, l.13, ‘below bridge’ for (probably) ‘below the bridge’; p.200, l.11, ‘g’ in ‘again’ broken; p.213, l.12, ‘ed’ of ‘feared’ broken; p.218, l.15, ‘r’ in ‘sir’ very badly broken; p.231, l.19, full-stop lacking after ‘man’s’; p.239, l.14, ‘m’ in ‘remoter’ printed too heavily; p.246, l.20, ‘d’ in ‘old’ broken; p.255, l.16, ‘d’ in ‘joined’ broken; p.266, l.8, ‘g’ in ‘laugh-’ broken; p.297, last line, ‘t’ in ‘not’ broken; p.396, l.20, redundant comma after ‘animation’.
Ref: CRT801014