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Life And Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, The
London: Chapman and Hall, 1839. Item #06357
First Edition, Early Issue - in the Original Cloth
DICKENS, Charles. The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby. With Illustrations by Phiz. London: Chapman and Hall, 1839.
First edition. Early issue, with thirty-five of Smith’s forty-one first-issue internal flaws (including all of the major points), and the first-state frontispiece bearing the Chapman and Hall imprint.
Octavo (8 7/8 x 5 1/4 in; 225 x 133 mm). xvi, 624 pp. Forty black and white plates, including frontispiece portrait, engraved by Finden after Maclise. The publisher's imprint called for in first issue of the first five plates shows only on the Maclise portrait. (The parts were issued with and without the imprint on the first four plates.).
Publisher’s primary binding in dark olive-green fine-diaper-grain cloth, covers stamped in blind, spine lettered in gilt. With the bookplate of Joseph Turner on the front pastedown. Inner hinges expertly repaired, a few small tears to the joints. A bright copy, with only slight fading to the spine. Some light to moderate foxing to the plates, but without the dark staining to the plate borders usually encountered in this title. Housed in a felt-lined green cloth slipcase. A very good example.
Nicholas Nickleby was originally published in twenty numbers, bound in nineteen monthly parts, the last part as a double number from April 1838 through October 1839. The first edition in book form was made up from these parts. "It was the novelist's intention to expose in this story the terrible abuses practiced in the cheap boarding-schools of Yorkshire, and, in order that he realize their true character, he determined to investigate for himself the real facts as to the condition of those notorious seminaries, Accordingly, at the end of January 1838, he and 'Phiz' started on this memorable journey, in bitterly cold weather, and, visiting several schools in the locality, they came into direct contact with the proprietors. One of these was William Shaw, the identical schoolmaster who, some years previously, had been heavily fined for what was represented at the trial as gross maltreatment of his pupils" (Kitton, Dickens and His Illustrators, p. 75). It was Shaw upon whom Dickens based the infamous Squeers. Having made an enemy of his uncle Ralph, Nickolas was sent as an usher to Dotheboys Hall, where Wackford Squeers starved and maltreated forty students under the pretense of education. "The character of Mrs. Nickleby was largely founded upon that of Dickens's mother… [The title character] was founded on Dickens's brother-in-law, Hanry Burnett, a music teacher at Manchester" (Hayward, The Dickens Encyclopedia, p. 115).
"H.K. Browne prepared 39 illustrations for this novel, as well as the cover for the monthly parts, while the portrait frontispiece was engraved by Finden from a painting by Maclise. Because of the the large monthly circulation of the parts, Browne etched as many as four plates, in some cases, of each illustration, and all of them were printed in the initial issue of the parts. Many of the plates from 'Miss Nickleby introduced to her uncle's friends' (page 175) onward contain Arabic or Roman numerals which indicate the order in which they were etched. Most of the numerals are located in the lower right corner, and occasionally in the left. Hatton and Cleaver state that the numeral for Plate 31 ('Mysterious appearance of the gentleman in the small-clothes,' p. 487) appears on the front of the mantleshelf…The first state of the frontispiece and the first four illustrations contain the imprint of Chapman and Hall. The first state of the frontispiece always appears in the monthly parts; the first four illustrations were issued with and without the imprint in the parts, but the plates without imprints did not appear in the earlier issues of the monthly parts, and may, therefore, be termed 'second states''' (Smith I, 5).
Smith, Part I, 5. Eckel p.64. Hatton and Cleaver, pp. 131-160; Sadleir 695; Wolff 1806.
Price: $5,500.00