[Literature] Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations

London: Chapman and Hall, 1861. In three volumes. First edition in book form, first issue (possibly sophisticated), with no edition statements on title-pages, earliest state text per Smith and Clarendon, except for p. 103 in Vol. II and "inflexible" on line 4, p. 193 in same (noted as sometimes missing, and indicating this being among the earliest printings of the first issue). 8vo. Without 32 pp. ads at rear of Vol. III. Extra-illustrated, with a vignette title-page and 20 plates by Frederick William Pailthorpe from the London 1885 Robson & Kerslake edition, and with list of plates bound at front of Vol. I from same edition. Full green morocco, decorated in gilt, spine browned, faint scratching to boards; top edges gilt, other edges untrimmed; marbled endpapers; by Zaehnsdorf; scattered light spotting to text; abrasion on front paste-down of third volume from removed label; in quarter grey calf solander box. Smith I, 14; Eckel pp. 91-93

Extra-illustrated first edition, first issue in book form of Dickens's rarest work. One of only two of his works to not be illustrated and not be issued in monthly parts, it was first serialized in 36 weekly numbers in Dickens' own magazine, All the Year Round, beginning on December 1, 1860 through August 3, 1861. This book form edition was published July 6, 1861, followed by four other issues through October 30. "The rarity of the first issue of Great Expectations has been attributed to the probable small binding-up of copies with the first title-page, coupled with the fact...that 'the first edition was almost entirely taken up by the libraries'...Patten, pp. 290-92, states that 1,000 copies of the first issue and 750 of the second were printed and that probably most of the first and more than half of the second (1,400) copies in all were purchased by Mundie's Select Library." (Smith). Smith notes another copy extra-illustrated with the same Pailthorpe plates, at the Huntington Library. That copy was rebound by Riviere, and contains some corrected text.

From the private library of Dr. David L. Harrar II, Sunnyvale, California

[Literature] Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations