[DICKENS, Charles]. -- TAVERNER, H. T. Charles Dickens, the Story of His Life. London: John Camden Hotten, 1870.

8vo (186 x 121 mm). EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED by the addition of over 60 portraits and engravings and 2 facsimiles. Tan calf gilt, center panel textured in a straight-grained pattern (upper joint just starting). Provenance: Edmund Ollier (1827-1886) English journalist (signature and annotations, see below).

FIRST EDITION, A FINE ASSOCIATION COPY, annotated throughout by Dickens's contemporary and friend, Edmund Ollier. In one such annotation, Ollier recalls: "I recollect my father used to say that Dickens originally intended to make only a short story of "Oliver Twist", but he (my father) recommended him to give it the usual three-volume dimensions. My father was at that time engaged at Bentley's" (p.69). Ollier contributed works to Household Words, and his father knew Dickens while employed by the publisher Richard Bentley. Dickens contributed a serialised edition of Oliver Twist illustrated by George Cruikshank to Bentley's Miscellany, which first appeared in January 1837, and which was an immediate success. Ultimately, Dickens paid Bentley £2,250 to buy out the rest of his contract and to purchase the copyright to Oliver Twist.

Property of an Illinois collector

Property of an Illinois collector

[DICKENS, Charles]. -- TAVERNER, H. T. Charles Dickens, the Story of His Life. London: John Camden Hotten, 1870.

[DICKENS, Charles]. -- TAVERNER, H. T. Charles Dickens, the Story of His Life. London: John Camden Hotten, 1870.