DICKENS, Charles; SHEPHERD, Richard Herne, editor

Speeches of Charles Dickens [1841-1870], The

London: Chatto and Windus, 1884. Item #06565

One of Only 50 Large-Paper Copies
A Finely Bound Gathering of Dickens’s Public Voice

[DICKENS, Charles]. SHEPHERD, Richard Herne, editor. The Speeches of Charles Dickens [1841–1870].
Edited and prefaced by Richard Herne Shepherd. With a new bibliography revised and enlarged. London: Chatto and Windus, 1884.

Large-paper edition. One of only 50 numbered copies, this being no. 4.

Large octavo. [4], xlviii, [49]–378, [1, label], [1, blank] pp.

Handsomely bound ca. 1910 by Rivière & Son in full brown crushed levant morocco, covers triple-ruled in gilt, spine with five raised bands richly gilt in compartments, lettered in gilt, gilt board edges and elaborate gilt turn-ins, dark blue coated endpapers, top edge gilt, others uncut. A small crack at the lower portion of the front joint, but entirely sound; an unusually well-preserved copy.

A distinguished large-paper issue of The Speeches of Charles Dickens, gathering together the public addresses of Charles Dickens delivered between 1841 and 1870 - an aspect of his career often overshadowed by his fiction, yet central to his public identity. Dickens was one of the great orators of the Victorian age, and these speeches - ranging from literary banquets and charitable appeals to reflections on authorship and social reform - offer a vivid and immediate sense of his personality, wit, and moral conviction.

The edition was edited by Richard Herne Shepherd, whose careful scholarship and appended bibliography helped establish the text as the standard collected form of Dickens’s speeches. This large-paper issue, limited to just fifty copies, was intended for a small circle of collectors and connoisseurs, and is rarely encountered in commerce.

The present copy is further elevated by an elegant early twentieth-century binding by Rivière & Son, whose work here exemplifies the firm’s refined approach to classical English bookbinding - rich but restrained, with beautifully balanced tooling and excellent materials. The survival of the uncut edges adds a desirable bibliophilic touch, preserving the generous margins characteristic of the large-paper issue.

An important and scarce Dickensiana item, combining textual significance, extreme limitation, and a handsome period binding - altogether a copy of considerable appeal.

Price: $750.00