[DICKENS, CHARLES]. The Personal History of David Copperfield. London: Bradbury & Evans, 1850.
Hardcover. First edition [in book form], second issue. Leather-bound. Octavo (215 x 135mm), pp. [xiv], errata, 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 (earlier state with date). Bound without 8pp. of publisher's advertisements at the end.
Condition: NEAR FINE. A superb copy, internally remarkably crisp and clean, without previous ownership markings, however there is some light foxing to prelims. The binding is tight, the hinges perfectly preserved. Gilt fresh and bright, the covers unblemished. Scarce thus.
Note: A NEAR FINE COPY OF ONE OF THE AUTHOR'S MOST CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED AND BEST LOVED WORKS. David Copperfield first appeared in nineteen monthly parts between May 1849 and November 1850. This book edition was published in late 1850. The most autobiographical of all of Dickens's novels, David Copperfield had enormous personal importance to its author. Many of the most painful episodes of his life were only thinly veiled in the book, leading Dickens to speak of the difficulty of 'dismissing some portion of himself into the shadowy world.' In his preface to the 1869 edition, Dickens writes: 'Of all my books, I like this the best. It will be easily believed that I am a fond parent to every child of my fancy, and that no one can ever love that family as dearly as I love them. But, like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is David Copperfield.'
This first book edition of "David Copperfield" has 9 of the 10 points of reference contained in the first issue: 1. No half-title. 2. Six-line errata leaf on page xv. 3. Chapter xxvii listed in table contents at pp. 283, instead of pp. 282. 4. "recal" line 1 on pp. 16 and on pp. 225 line 22. 5."chapter;ut" on pp. 19, 12 lines from bottom. 6. "coroboration" is 6 lines up on pp.387. 7. No quotes at end of pp 13. 8. Page viii, preface, has the final "i" misaligned. 9. Engraved title page is dated 1850. However, "screamed" has been corrected to "screwed" on pp. 132, line 20. This work is splendidly illustrated throughout with engravings by Hablot Knight Browne (1815-1882), the celebrated English artist well-known by his pen name, Phiz, who illustrated books by Charles Dickens, Charles Lever, and Harrison Ainsworth. It contains the second of Browne's so-called "dark plates" ("The River," at page 482 - the first dark-plate appeared in Dombey and Son), created by a machine process that tints the etched plate so as to heighten the contrast between black and white, anticipating some of the techniques of white-line engraving (Johannsen, Phiz, 309). References: Smith I:9; Sadleir 686.
