Books

1843. First Edition. DICKENS, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. His Relatives, Friends, and Enemies. London: Chapman and Hall, January, 1843-July, 1844. Twenty parts in nineteen. Octavo, original pale bluish-green printed paper wrappers. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. $8500.First edition in original parts of Dickens' picaresque novel of ""farce, melodrama, and social criticism,"" with 40 full-page etchings by Hablôt Knight Browne (""Phiz""). An excellent copy in the scarce and desirable original parts—complete with all advertisements—handsomely boxed by Sangorski & Sutcliffe.First issued in 20 numbers from January 1843 to July 1844, Martin Chuzzlewit reflects the disillusionment Dickens felt from a recent trip to the United States, his first American reading tour. As Fielding had sent his Tom Jones to London, Dickens ""adopted the same radical expedient of sending his youthful protagonist not merely to London, but to America. The…