DICKENS, Charles.

£15,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

The Personal History of David Copperfield. First edition, in the original monthly parts as published from May 1849 to November 1850. The set conforms to Hatton and Cleaver's collation of earliest issue throughout with only a few exceptions, noted below. Almost all the advertisements are present, including the scarce "Lett's Diaries". This set also includes two additional adverts that are unrecorded in Hatton and Cleaver.Dickens's classic Bildungsroman is his most lightly disguised autobiographical fiction. In the preface to the 1867 edition, Dickens called the novel his "favourite child", a sentiment shared by many readers: "With many lovers of the author's works David Copperfield ranks as the finest of his writings" (Eckel, p. 77). The novel has been adapted into films multiple times, including most recently in 2019, starring Dev Patel.The set varies from Hatton and Cleaver in these particulars: Part 6 with two extra rear adverts, "Journal of Design" (2 pp.) and "Practical Treatise on Musical Composition" (2 pp.); Part 7 without front slip; Part 8 with front advert in four pages rather than two; Part 18 front wrapper dropping the "N" in "No. XVIII", and with the alternative 2-page Waterlow & Sons rear adverts in yellow rather than salmon; Parts 19-20 with the alternative Waterlow & Sons adverts, and lacking the two front slips and the "Lewis Arundel" rear ad leaf. Part 8 includes the scarce "Lett's Diaries" advert, with six specimen diary leaves, one of them folding.

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