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In 1850, the Times began publishing articles exposing the Court of Chancery, and the quagmire-like delays and proceedings inherent in the legal system. Here was Dickens’s opportunity. In Bleak House, his ninth novel, he attacked the abuses in the Courts, and continued his portrayal of London slums. Again ‘Phiz’ (Dickens’s ‘cher Brune’) illustrated the novel, which among others featured Esther Summerson, Mrs Jellyby, Krook (who dies by spontaneous combustion), Jo, and Sir Leicester Dedlock. The first instalment of 25,000 copies sold out and had to be reprinted; Dickens himself wrote: ‘It is an enormous success’. On display is the first printing of the first book edition, which sold for one guinea (£1 1s).

[Title page and frontispiece with illustrations by Hablot Knight Browne from Charles Dickens's Bleak House. 1st book edition, 1st printing. ]

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‘Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root everything else.’ So begins Dickens’s Hard Times (1854), a work with its subtitle: For These Times. With his satiric swipe at industrialism, James Mill’s Utilitarianism, and the national obsession with the ‘science’ of Political Economy (measuring everything by facts, figures, and averages), Dickens confirmed to his friend Carlyle, to whom the work was dedicated: ‘I know it contains nothing in which you do not think with me.’ There were no illustrations to Hard Times, Dickens’s shortest novel.

[Page 4 and 5 of Charles Dickens's Hard Times. For These Times.]

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Hablot Browne’s cartoon on the top of the first part of Little Dorrit depicts a procession of decrepit, fool-like individuals, including a dozing Britannia. The image matches Dickens’s satiric attack in the book on the ruling class and their ineptitude. His famed Circumlocution Office highlights well civil service bureaucracy and incompetence. His strong feelings against imprisonment for debt also allowed use of the Marshalsea Debtor’s Prison, where ‘heroine’ Amy Dorrit was born, and her delusional father William is the longest serving inmate. Arthur Clennam, a guilt-ridden ‘anti-hero’, is determined to rescue Amy from her plight. Originally titled Nobody’s Fault, Little Dorrit was the last of Dickens’s novels issued by Bradbury and Evans. Note Amy’s ‘sunny’ appearance on the title-page.

[Cover of the first part of Charles Dickens's Little Dorrit, December 1855. ]

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Hablot Browne’s cartoon on the top of the first part of Little Dorrit depicts a procession of decrepit, fool-like individuals, including a dozing Britannia. The image matches Dickens’s satiric attack in the book on the ruling class and their ineptitude. His famed Circumlocution Office highlights well civil service bureaucracy and incompetence. His strong feelings against imprisonment for debt also allowed use of the Marshalsea Debtor’s Prison, where ‘heroine’ Amy Dorrit was born, and her delusional father William is the longest serving inmate. Arthur Clennam, a guilt-ridden ‘anti-hero’, is determined to rescue Amy from her plight. Originally titled Nobody’s Fault, Little Dorrit was the last of Dickens’s novels issued by Bradbury and Evans. Note Amy’s ‘sunny’ appearance on the title-page.

[Title page and frontispiece with illustrations by Hablot Knight Browne from Charles Dickens's Little Dorrit. 1st book edition.]

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Dickens made two trips to America; the first between January and June 1842, and the second between November 1867 and April 1868. American Notes, a mix of sketches and travelogue, was the outcome of his first visit. Not gun-shy, Dickens made disparaging comments on their corrupt political system, slavery, their press, and even the habit of spitting in public. His advocacy for an international copyright agreement between Britain and the United States which would prevent the pirating of books further outraged some American readers. Despite adverse reviews, American Notes is an amusing read, especially with the dialogues concocted of people he met along the way. They are crafted in his own inimitable style.

[Page 190-191 from Charles Dickens's American Notes and Pictures from Italy.]

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Dickens made two trips to America; the first between January and June 1842, and the second between November 1867 and April 1868. American Notes, a mix of sketches and travelogue, was the outcome of his first visit. Not gun-shy, Dickens made disparaging comments on their corrupt political system, slavery, their press, and even the habit of spitting in public. His advocacy for an international copyright agreement between Britain and the United States which would prevent the pirating of books further outraged some American readers. Despite adverse reviews, American Notes is an amusing read, especially with the dialogues concocted of people he met along the way. They are crafted in his own inimitable style.

[Title page and frontispiece from Charles Dickens's American Notes and Pictures from Italy.]

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]]> Dickens made two trips to America; the first between January and June 1842, and the second between November 1867 and April 1868. American Notes, a mix of sketches and travelogue, was the outcome of his first visit. Not gun-shy, Dickens made disparaging comments on their corrupt political system, slavery, their press, and even the habit of spitting in public. His advocacy for an international copyright agreement between Britain and the United States which would prevent the pirating of books further outraged some American readers. Despite adverse reviews, American Notes is an amusing read, especially with the dialogues concocted of people he met along the way. They are crafted in his own inimitable style.

[Title page and frontispiece illustration by Arthur A. Dixon from Charles Dickens's American Notes.]

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Dickens made two trips to America; the first between January and June 1842, and the second between November 1867 and April 1868. American Notes, a mix of sketches and travelogue, was the outcome of his first visit. Not gun-shy, Dickens made disparaging comments on their corrupt political system, slavery, their press, and even the habit of spitting in public. His advocacy for an international copyright agreement between Britain and the United States which would prevent the pirating of books further outraged some American readers. Despite adverse reviews, American Notes is an amusing read, especially with the dialogues concocted of people he met along the way. They are crafted in his own inimitable style.

[Illustration by Arthur A. Dixon opposite page 80 from Charles Dickens's American Notes.]

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For one year, from July 1844 to July 1845, Dickens and his family lived in Genoa. Based on letters to his friend Forster, Pictures from Italy describes the travels in the ‘good old shabby devil of a coach’ through France, and then to Genoa via Marseilles. While residing in an Albaro villa, and then ‘Palazzo Peschiere’, he also visited Venice, Naples, Rome (the Colosseum: ‘most stupendous and awful’), Pisa, and Pompeii, where he climbed Mt. Vesuvius and looked ‘into the flaming bowels of the mountain’. Conscious of charges of anti-Catholicism, he reminded readers that Pictures from Italy was ‘a series of faint reflections – mere shadows in the water.’ Here are the first Bradbury and first Tauchnitz editions of 1846.

 

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Pictures from Italy describes the travels in the ‘good old shabby devil of a coach’ through France, and then to Genoa via Marseilles. While residing in an Albaro villa, and then ‘Palazzo Peschiere’, he also visited Venice, Naples, Rome (the Colosseum: ‘most stupendous and awful’), Pisa, and Pompeii, where he climbed Mt. Vesuvius and looked ‘into the flaming bowels of the mountain’. Conscious of charges of anti-Catholicism, he reminded readers that Pictures from Italy was ‘a series of faint reflections – mere shadows in the water.’ Here are the first Bradbury and first Tauchnitz editions of 1846.]]> Charles Dickens ]]>



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Pictures from Italy describes the travels in the ‘good old shabby devil of a coach’ through France, and then to Genoa via Marseilles. While residing in an Albaro villa, and then ‘Palazzo Peschiere’, he also visited Venice, Naples, Rome (the Colosseum: ‘most stupendous and awful’), Pisa, and Pompeii, where he climbed Mt. Vesuvius and looked ‘into the flaming bowels of the mountain’. Conscious of charges of anti-Catholicism, he reminded readers that Pictures from Italy was ‘a series of faint reflections – mere shadows in the water.’ Here are the first Bradbury and first Tauchnitz editions of 1846.]]> Charles Dickens]]>
]]> Great Expectations first appeared in 36-weekly parts in Dickens’s All The Year Round (1 December 1860 to 3 August 1861) and was not illustrated. However, the earlier and almost parallel first American printing was. Appearing in Harper’s Weekly (24 November 1860 to 3 August 1861) their Great Expectations carried 40 illustrations by John McLenan, the so-called ‘American Phiz’. Another point of difference was that the first American book edition (1861) carried Dickens’s pen-name ‘Boz’, which he had stopped using in 1844. Like the earlier David Copperfield, Great Expectations is strongly autobiographical, and mirrors many aspects of Dickens’s life. The ‘led/lead’ reference on display is just one bibliographical difference that helps distinguish between first, second, and later printings.]]> Charles Dickens]]>


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The death of his mother; the death of Thackeray; the finishing of Mrs Lirriper’s Lodgings and The Uncommercial Traveller, and house hunting (57 Gloucester Place), were events that occurred around the time Dickens was writing Our Mutual Friend, his fourteenth and last completed novel. It was a difficult book to write. The Staplehurst rail crash of 9 June 1865 did not help. While ministering to the injured in this tragedy, Dickens managed to clamber back on the train and rescue the manuscript of Our Mutual Friend. He was not injured, but he did feel ‘quite shattered and broken up’. Our Mutual Friend was published in parts, the first selling 35,000 copies. There was a major difference to this work about greed: the illustrations were by Marcus Stone, rather than by ‘Phiz’. This is the first book edition.

[Frontispiece illustration by Marcus Stone and title page from Volume II of Charles Dickens's Our Mutual Friend.]

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Great Expectations first appeared in 36-weekly parts in Dickens’s All The Year Round (1 December 1860 to 3 August 1861) and was not illustrated. However, the earlier and almost parallel first American printing was. Appearing in Harper’s Weekly (24 November 1860 to 3 August 1861) their Great Expectations carried 40 illustrations by John McLenan, the so-called ‘American Phiz’. Another point of difference was that the first American book edition (1861) carried Dickens’s pen-name ‘Boz’, which he had stopped using in 1844. Like the earlier David Copperfield, Great Expectations is strongly autobiographical, and mirrors many aspects of Dickens’s life. The ‘led/lead’ reference on display is just one bibliographical difference that helps distinguish between first, second, and later printings.

[Page 150 and 151 from Charles Dickens's Great Expectations, 1st edition, Volume III, Chapter X. ]

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The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.]]> Charles Dickens]]> The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.]]> Charles Dickens]]> The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.]]> Charles Dickens]]> The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.]]> Charles Dickens]]> ]]> The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, shows Wackford Squeers admonishing one of his unfortunate charges.]]> Charles Dickens]]> ]]> Mr Squeers by Thomas Onwhyn from Charles Dickens's The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby]]> Charles Dickens]]>
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The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.]]> Charles Dickens]]>
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (Household Edition).]]> Charles Dickens]]> The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.]]> Charles Dickens]]>

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By February 1838, Charles Dickens had begun Nicholas Nickleby, his third novel. Published serially between April 1838 and October 1839, he was paid £150 per number, with a bonus offered of £1500 on completion. The soon-to-be-more-famous Hablot Knight Browne (‘Phiz’) illustrated the novel. There was fieldwork involved. In 1838, both men travelled to Yorkshire to look at schools; Dotheboys Hall was the reconstituted literary result. This first book edition also contains Daniel Maclise’s engraved portrait of Dickens as well as coloured plates by ‘Peter Palette’, a pseudonym for Thomas Onwhyn, a later Punch illustrator.

[The internal economy of Dotheboys Hall. An illustration by Hablot Knight Browne in Charles Dickens, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.]

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]]> Charles Dickens was the second of eight children to John and Elizabeth Dickens, née Barrow. Financial mismanagement resulted in John being imprisoned for debt in Marshalsea Debtor’s Prison. One consequence of this was that the twelve-year old Dickens was taken out of school and made to work at Warren’s Blacking Factory, where he spent ten hours a day, Monday through Saturday, pasting labels onto pots of blacking. This experience haunted Dickens for years, and many of his novels like Dombey and Son and David Copperfield reflect his concern for destitute children, orphans and abandonment. Here he is in happier times, with a portrait painted by E. Lawn, circa 1870. The usual flourish that ended most of Dickens’s letters is depicted opposite.

[Letter written by Charles Dickens in Charles Dickens Papers 1845-1881.]

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