Great Expectations. by DICKENS, Charles - 1861

London: Chapman and Hall,, 1861. With all the points of first issue First edition, first impression, published on 6 July 1861; both the rarest and most valuable of Dickens's major novels, and, arguably, his greatest work.
Five impressions of the first edition were printed, each of the latter four with a new edition statement on the title page. The modern bibliographical authority is generally agreed to be the table given in Appendix D to the Clarendon edition, 1993, in which Margaret Cardwell agrees with the traditional conclusion that the same setting of type was used for all five impressions: "there is no warrant for treating the five impressions as distinct editions" (p. 491). However, she deduces that the impressions were sequential and that minor corrections and gradual deterioration of type can be shown across the five impressions, allowing the first impression to be identified even when the title page is tampered with or absent.
Patten states that 1,000 copies of the first impression were printed and that probably most of these copies were purchased by Mudie's Select Library where, as circulating library copies, they inevitably suffered a high rate of attrition, leading to their renowned rarity.
This copy contains the earliest state of every point outlined in the detailed analysis found in the Clarendon edition of Great Expectations (1993, Appendices C & D). The third volume here contains the numeral "3" in the pagination on p. 103, and the "i" in "inflexible" on p. 193, which are sometimes missing in copies of the first impression of the third volume, indicating that the present copy is among the earlier printings of the first impression. This copy also has the early reading of vol. 3, p. 192, with "himself" and "very carefully" on separate lines. 3 volumes, octavo (189 x 119 mm). Contemporary red half calf by Seton & Mackenzie, twin green calf labels lettered in gilt ("Great Expectations / Dicken's" [sic]), green cloth sides, marbled edges. Housed in a green quarter morocco solander box by the Chelsea Bindery. Vol. III bound without 32pp. catalogue. Light wear at corners, foxing to endpapers, rear free endpaper of vol. III with loss and terminal binder's blank in vol. I neatly excised, some light finger-soiling and faint foxing, a few leaves with minor marginal loss not affecting text, binder's ticket from original cloth adhered to vol. I p. 63. A very good copy. Smith, I, 14 (but superseded by Clarendon); Sadleir 688; Wolff 1799. Robert L. Patten, Charles Dickens and His Publishers, 1978.