DICKENS, Charles.

£1,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Dombey and Son. First edition in book form of "one of the greatest of all his works... also the first one to have an explicitly contemporary setting" (ODNB), from the library of William Foyle and in an attractive Samuel Tout binding. The novel was issued in monthly parts from September 1846 to March 1848, and in book form on completion. Dombey is further noted for containing "the first published example of a so-called dark plate... 'On the Dark Road', p. 547. 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.Although unmarked as such, this copy comes from the collection of William Foyle (1883-1963), the co-founder of the eponymous chain of booksellers. Foyle's grandson acquired a substantial portion of the original collection at the landmark Foyle Library sale in 2000, including the present copy.From 1868 to 1879, Samuel Tout (1841-1902) bound books in Soho, London. He then worked in Whitechapel with William Coward, continuing on his own after 1880. Tout was also an early member of the staff of Karslake's Hampstead Bindery, which opened in Charing Cross in 1898.

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