The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. by DICKENS, Charles - 1839: With Illustrations by Phiz.

London: Chapman and Hall, 1839. First edition, bound from the original monthly parts as published from April 1838 to October 1839.
Dickens had been catapulted to fame with the success of The Pickwick Papers, and to secure his next novel Chapman and Hall offered Dickens £150 a part, a sum ten times greater than that which he had received for Pickwick. It met with great public enthusiasm, which has continued unabated: Dickens's biographer Ackroyd stated that the novel "has some title to being the funniest novel Dickens ever wrote; it is perhaps the funniest novel in the English language" (Ackroyd, p. 262).
This copy has the later state "latter" for "letter" on p. 160, the later state "sister" rather than "visiter" on p. 123, and the later state of the first five plates, which lack the imprint of Chapman and Hall. Octavo (211 x 128 mm). Contemporary half calf, brown morocco spine label, flat spine tooled in gilt and blind, marbled sides and endpapers. Engraved portrait frontispiece, 39 engraved plates by Phiz. Bound without half-title, pp. 241-2 misbound between pp. 256-7. Signature to head of title page and p. 1, annotation to p. 243 and p. 543. Slight insect damage at foot of front joint, initial binder's blank creased and affixed to front free endpaper, a few plates with dampstains or browning, illustrations largely unaffected. A good copy. Smith I.5. Peter Ackroyd, Dickens, Sinclair-Stevenson, 1990.