Books

First edition in book form of the novel which the author himself described as by "a hundred points immeasurably the best of my stories" (letter to John Forster, 2 November 1843), in a particularly handsome contemporary binding. Martin Chuzzlewit marked "a great change in Dickens's conception of moral characteristics... For the first time Dickens begins to explore the contradictions and difficulties of the contemporary human world; these are no longer figures defined by a single characteristic or animated by the wilful principle of a 'humour', but ones who are seen to change with the changing world, to live and grow" (Ackroyd, p. 392). The novel was first issued in monthly parts from January 1843 to July 1844 and published in book form on completion. Octavo (213 x 134 mm). Contemporary red morocco, spine lettered in gilt, richly gilt in compartments, sides with gilt triple fillet border enclosing an ecclesiastical arch roll, gilt turn-ins, yellow endpapers, gilt edges. Engraved frontispiece, vignette title page (£ sign not transposed, no priority of issue), 38 engraved plates by H. K. Browne. Slight darkening to morocco, light oxidization to plates but cleaner than often; an excellent copy. Smith I.7. Peter Ackroyd, Dickens, 1990.