[DICKENS, CHARLES]. Bleak House. London: Bradbury & Evans, 1850.
Hardcover. First edition [in book form], first issue. Leather-bound. Octavo (215 x 135mm), pp. [xvi], 624. Finely bound in dark-green full morocco, signed by Bayntun-Riviere, Bath, England. Spine with five raised bands, the compartments and bands fully gilt ruled, tooled and lettered. Boards and edges gilt ruled. Upper board with gilt impressed oval portrait vignette of the author. Rear board with gilt impressed authors facsimile signature. Elaborate inner gilt dentelles. All page edges gilt. Marbled pastedowns and endpapers. 40 illustrations by Hablot K. Browne (a.k.a. "Phiz") including frontispiece and vignette title-page. Bound without publisher's advertisements at the end. Condition: NEAR FINE. A superb copy, internally remarkably crisp and clean, however there is some light offsetting, notably without previous ownership markings. The binding is tight and secure, the hinges perfectly preserved. Gilt fresh and bright, the covers unblemished. Scarce thus.
Note: Although many of Dickens most famous works are crawling with crime, it is just this title that can be firmly placed in the murder mystery category. 'Bleak House' is essentially a classic whodunit, professionally solved, which became only the second entry (after Poe's 'Tales') in the Haycraft-Queen cornerstone list of crime fiction. Dickens returned to crime fiction for his highly-rated final story, the 'Mystery of Edwin Drood' but this was unfinished and the case unsolved. Within 'Bleak House' the author experiments with dual narrators and the story ranges from the dark and filthy Victorian slums to the landed aristocracy; Inspector Bucket is one of the earliest detectives to appear in fiction and was probably based on C.K. Field of the recently formed Scotland Yard. An essential mystery novel, originally published in 20 numbers in 19 parts (the last two numbers published in one part) between March 1852 and September 1853, published in one volume 12th Sept. 1853. All Walter Smith first edition issue points present including: elgble on page 19 line 6; chair for hair on page 209, line 23; counsinship on page 275 line 22; plus 5 line errata on page xvi. References: Sadleir (682); Smith (82/83); Podeschi; Gimbel Catalogue Grolier Club Exhibition Catalogue (1913); Collins; Dickens and Crime (1962); Queen's Quorum; Book Collector No.273, p34; Graham Greene & Dorothy Glover; Victorian Detective Fiction (1966).
