The Three Musketeers; [Les Trois Mousquetaires]

London: Vickers, 1846. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. First London edition, so loosening the corsets of historical romance that every writer who followed could fondle her breasts. It's not the first in the English language because 2 U. S. translations precede (the first is Baltimore, Taylor Wilde, 1846, published Dec. 5, 1845), and it is abridged, as were all other translation into English before Richard Pevear's in 2006. Our rare Vickers edition was serialized in penny parts from Jan. to May 8. Bruce and Wyld's London edition (The Library of Foreign Romance) ran in sixpence parts from Mar. to May 12, and book issues followed promptly in the same order, a priority with which both bibliographies, Munro and Reed, agree and this has been confirmed physically since publication of those bibliographies. Nonetheless, we see Bruce and Wyld's much more common, later, and always overpriced edition negligently, dishonestly, and ineptly promoted as the first edition in English (it's the 4th) without qualifiers or details, when the conclusions in the best bibliographies are available to all. Our copy is bound with 4 other novels in a hefty, contemporary half morocco binding (6 1/4" X 9 1/2"), gilt spine, sides rubbed, else very good, the text printed in tiny but exquisitely clear type., and it is complete with the contents pages and all 16 illustrations Quite rare, 10 times rarer than any of the other London editions. RBH says no auction sales since 1975. OCLC locates (lists) 5 copies, British Library, British Library Reference, Aberdeen, No. Carolina, and Yale. This is just the 2nd copy of it that we have seen for sale in 50years of looking.