Bleak House With Illustrations by H.K. Browne

London: Bradbury and Evans, 1853. BROWNE, Hablot Knight. . Bleak House. With Illustrations by H.K. Browne London: Bradbury and Evans, 1853.

Full Description:

DICKENS, Charles. Bleak House. With Illustrations by H.K. Browne London: Bradbury and Evans, 1853.

First edition with all first issue points as listed by Smith including "elgble" on page 19, line 6; "chair" on page 209, line 23; "counsinship" on page 275, line 22. The only two points not found are both only found in "Some copies" (pg 230, not missing the 2; Page 620, "received"). In the primary binding variant with "MDCCCLIII" stamped in gilt on the foot of the spine. (truncated) But unlike Smith's variant mentioned, this current copy is bound with the half-title. Octavo (8 x 5 inches; 217 x 140 mm). [i-vii]viii-x[xi]xii-xiv[xv]xvi, [1]2-624. With forty engraved plates including the frontispiece and engraved title. Bound with half-title. With a note in Dickens' hand tipped in on front free endpaper, reading "Bleak House and The East Wind."

Original publisher’s green fine diaper-grain cloth, spine lettered in gilt, covers blindstamped according to the primary stamping pattern and with variant "MDCCCLIII" in gilt at foot of the spine. Yellow coated endpapers. Edges uncut. Spine a bit sunned. Corners and head and tail of spine a bit bumped and some light chipping to head and tail of spine. Back outer joint at top of spine with a small repair to cloth. A tiny split to top front of outer spine joint. Cloth on spine a bit wrinkled. Binding slightly skewed. Plates a bit foxed and toned. Text overall very clean. A few pages opened rough, not affecting text. Front pastedown with two previous owner's bookplates. Overall a very nice copy in a primary, variant binding. Housed in a custom full morocco clamshell

With the note in Dickens' hand tipped in to the front free endpaper, reading "Bleak House and The East Wind." "The wind blowing in the east is a constant point of reference for Mr. John Jarndyce, one of the novel's central characters, and a beacon of social good... He deploys the phrase when his world is threatend by disorder, or when he witnesses broader injustices. Easterly winds, after all, were believed to carry dirt and disease, and were considered a real threat in Victorian Britain. Given the novel's preoccupation with physical environments, and how these relate to individual and public health, this small comments is, in fact, incredibly charged with meaning." (Sotheby's)

"[I]n Bleak House for the first time [society] is seen as an absurdity, an irrelevance, almost a madness. A dark force from which the real people must escape in order to create another society of their own... [Dickens] had been preparing for this novel all his life and, despite the calamities... which had helped to provoke it in the first place, ... was even happy while he was writing it... It might even be said that Bleak House cured the very malaise which was responsible for its composition" (Ackroyd, 649-50).

Smith, Dickens, I, 10..

HBS 69008.

$7,500. (Inventory #: 69008)