Books

First edition in book form, in the original cloth and in desirable condition, entirely unopened, and preserved since the early 20th century in brown paper and red cloth custom jackets. A pencilled note on the front pastedown identifies it as "mint condition... from Lord Ashburnham's Library Sale". This is the much scarcer Colonial issue, with the imprint at the foot of the spine "Sydney, W. R. Piddington". After serialization, the novel was published in book form in September 1853. "Writing at the height of his powers, Dickens adopts a virtuoso form of double narration, and the novel has since the middle of the twentieth century been widely acclaimed as his greatest work" (ODNB). Octavo. Original blind-stamped green cloth, spine lettered in gilt, yellow coated endpapers. Etched frontispiece, vignette title page, and 38 plates (including the 10 "dark" plates) by Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz). Faint bookseller's blindstamp to front free endpaper and half-title. Spine lightly sunned, inner hinges very slightly tender, front free endpaper a little creased with repaired short closed tear at head, plates browned, in other respects an excellent copy. Eckel, p. 79; Kremers, pp. 100-3 (and 209-210 for the Sydney issue); Smith I 10.

Bleak House is a novel by Charles Dickens, originally published as a serial between March 1852 and September 1853. It is considered one of his finest works, containing a vast, complex plot and an extraordinary number of characters.