8vo. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne. (Some minor toning or offsetting to plates.) Original blindstamped cloth (spine ends and joints repaired, board edges reinforced in cloth, hinges cracked); slipcase. Provenance: Chester A. Arthur (inscription); Joseph F. Underwood, Broadmoor (later owner’s inscription on verso of front free endpaper). 

 

CHESTER A. ARTHUR’S COPY, INSCRIBED BY HIM on front pastedown: “C. A. Arthur / New York City”. Martin Chuzzlewit was first published in monthly installments. Early sales of the monthly parts were lower than those of previous works, so Dickens changed the plot to send the title character to the United States. Dickens had visited America in 1842 in part as a failed attempt to get the American publishers to honor international copyright laws. He satirized the country as a place filled with self-promoting hucksters, eager to sell land sight unseen. In later editions, and in his second visit 24 years later to a much-changed US, he made clear it was satire and not a balanced image of the nation in a speech and then included that speech in all future editions. This volume was issued as part of T. B. Peterson’s Uniform Edition of Charles Dickens’ Works (see Gimbel D25).