The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (First Edition)

DICKENS, Charles (illus. Hablot Knight Browne, "Phiz"). The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. London: Chapman and Hall, 1844.

Octavo (220 × 139 mm). Full tan polished calf. Spine with five raised bands, triple-ruled in gilt; titling to spine on red and black Morocco panels; compartments elaborately gilt-decorated. Covers margined in gilt. Elaborate gilt dentelles to turn-ins. All edges gilt. Arches hand-laid paper endpapers. Binder's stamp of Morrell, London, to upper corner of front flyleaf. xiv, [errata leaf with 14 lines, verso blank], 624 pp. 40 etched plates throughout including frontispiece and title-page vignette by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). First edition in book form. First issue points present: "100£" on sign-post of vignette title page; vignette signed "Phiz fecit" with seven studs in the trunk lid; 14-line errata leaf; preface dated "twenty-fifth June, 1844"; plates facing pp. 386 and 387 transposed. Subsequently and finely bound by Morrell Binders of London. Bibliographic references: Smith I:7; Hatton & Cleaver pp. 183–212; Sadleir.

Martin Chuzzlewit was published in nineteen monthly parts by Chapman and Hall between January 1843 and July 1844, with the first edition in book form appearing that same year. It was, by Dickens's own insistent reckoning, his best novel: "I think Chuzzlewit," he wrote to a contemporary, "in a hundred points immeasurably the best of my stories", a judgment from which he never wavered despite the commercial disappointment of its original reception. His biographer Peter Ackroyd identifies the novel as marking "a great change in Dickens's conception of moral characteristics. For the first time Dickens begins to explore the contradictions and difficulties of the contemporary human world; these are no longer figures defined by a single characteristic or animated by the wilful principle of a 'humour', but ones who are seen to change with the changing world, to live and grow."

Finely bound by Morrell Binders of London in full polished calf and gilt tooling. Covers triple-ruled and spine compartments elaborately detailed in gilt. Lettering to spine in gilt on red and black Morocco panels. Intricate gilt inner dentelles and all edges gilt. Morrell bindings in this style on first editions of Dickens are independently collectible and consistently sought after. The binder's stamp to the front flyleaf provides the attribution.

Near fine. Binding in beautiful condition: leather supple and strong, gilt bold and bright throughout. Contents show some light toning and sporadic spotting to preliminaries and to the rear of a few plate pages. These are a characteristic condition issue of this edition, attributable to the chemical interaction between the plate paper and the adjacent text leaves. Otherwise, contents clear and bright throughout.

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Catalogue Number: HH000631