The Works of Charles Dickens (Including: Bleak House; A Tale of Two Cities; Little Dorrit; Great Expectations; Oliver Twist; A Christmas Carol; David Copperfield; Dombey & Son; The Old Curiosity Shop; Nicholas Nickleby). by Dickens, Charles - 1906-08

London: Chapman & Hall, 1906-08. The complete works of Charles Dickens, The National edition, which is considered the best edition of works, his works with the definitive text, one of 750 sets. Octavo, 80 volumes. Finely bound in full calf, gilt titles and tooling to the spine, raised bands, gilt turn-ins, top edges gilt, marbled endpapers. Illustrated with reproductions of original title-pages, frontispieces, engraved and woodcut plates, as well as other illustrations and various facsimiles on India paper with captioned tissue-guards. Third-person letter written on behalf of Charles Dickens mounted to a binder's blank in the front of Volume I, "Mr. Charles Dickens begs to inform Messrs. Moore and Co. in answer to their [--] relative to the address of this letter Mr. G. M. Dickens, that he has no [--] to whom those initials [superscript: "as [--]"] belong, Broadstairs, Kent. First October 1841." In near fine condition. An exceptional set. Dickens is generally considered the greatest writer of the Victorian period. His works are characterized by attacks on social evils, injustice, and hypocrisy. "His imaginative freshness, his deep and sincere tenderness and pity, his whole-souled humor that is seldom sharpened into wit, his superabundance of creative energy, have built a deathless niche in the temple of fame for Charles Dickens" (Kunitz & Haycraft, 184).