THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK CLUB by DICKENS, Charles - 1837

1837. DICKENS, Charles. THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK CLUB. London: Chapman and Hall, 1837. First edition in book form, extra illustrated and finely bound. Octavo. (iii)-(xvi), 609 pp.; lacks half-title. This special copy has a duplicate hand-colored set of the original plates by Robert Seymour and "Phiz" (Hablot K. Browne), 2 hand-colored plates by Robert William Buss, a small set of 7 hand-colored plates by Phiz, a hand-colored plate of Sam Vale, the original of Sam Weller, by George Cruikshank, a hand-colored plate of Sam Weller, by F. W. Palthorpe, a hand-colored portrait of Serjeant Talfourd, and portraits of Dickens, Robert Seymour, and Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz" and "Nemo"). The uncolored plates by Phiz are earlier than the colored ones; they are not titled, but each is signed (when called for) and contains a page location number except the last sixteen (which Hatton and Cleaver, p. 63, claim are the earliest state of the original and duplicate plates for these illustrations) and, of course, the frontispiece and vignette title-page. The frontispiece and vignette title-page are both "second plate" (from the second version of the printing plate). There is a total of 101 plates, of which 55 are colored. Handsomely bound by Bayntun in full green crushed morocco with a black leather inlaid border, gilt facsimile of the author's signature on upper board, inner leather dentelles, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. An old bookseller's description is tipped-in at the first fly-leaf. Fine. (Smith v. I, 3).