[DICKENS, CHARLES]. Dombey and Son. London: Bradbury & Evans, 1848.
FIRST EDITION IN BOOK FORM. Leather-bound, hardcover, octavo (21.5 x 13.5 x 4.5 cm.), pp. xvi, [ii], 624. English text. Beautifully bound in later half calf gilt, cloth sides. With 40 engraved plates including frontispiece and vignette title (with the first example of a dark plate: "On the Dark Road", p. 547) by H. K. Browne. Extra-illustrated with 4 additional portrait plates from the Chapman & Hall series by the same artist. Condition: VERY GOOD. Binding tight and secure with the joints and hinges perfectly intact. Slight fading to top portion of rear cover. Contents generally well-preserved with some foxing confined to some plates. Without previous ownership markings.
Notes: An excellent copy of Dombey, Dickens's novel about a shipping firm which was originally issued in 19 monthly parts of 32 pages each between 1846 and 1848 under the full title "Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation". This is the first edition in book form, first issue, with all the first issue points present: without the page number entry for the frontispiece and vignette (list pf plates); no quotation marks around "Party" (fourth item down in the list of plates); p248 has "Delight" instead of "Joy"; p26, line 11 - has "fidgetty"; p40, lines 16 and 17 have "shewed" and "shewn" for "showed" and "shown"; p324 - last word on the page spelt as "Capatin" not "Captain"; on vignette titlepage, Cuttle has a hook on his left hand.
Dombey and Son "was well received by its readers, and is considered to be the first novel that reflects Dickens's artistic maturity". Dickens told his first biographer, "It was to do with Pride what its predecessor [Martin Chuzzlewit] has done with Selfishness" (Schlicke, 280). The novel contains "the first published example of a so-called dark plate, which was created by a machine process that tinted the etched plate and heightened its black-and-white contrast. The smooth blending of light and shadow on this illustration vividly contrasts it with the other illustrations in the novel and is a fine example of the dark plate process" (Smith). The technique was later put to use for ten plates in Bleak House and eight in Little Dorrit. This copy is extra-illustrated with 4 stunning portrait plates from the Chapman & Hall series by H. K. Browne. Hatton & Cleaver pp. 227-50; Smith I, 8.
