THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF NICHOLAS NICKLEBY

First edition in book form. Publisher's original deluxe full burgundy morocco with four gilt-decorated raised bands and gilt titles to the spine. Bound from the parts, with stab-holes visible. All edges gilt. Portrait frontispiece of the author (in the first state), engraved by Finden from a painting by Maclise. Illustrated with 39 full page plates by "Phiz". A handsome, very good copy, the binding square and firm with very slight bumping to the corners and some rubbing to the extremities of the spine and corners. The contents, with some foxing to the prelims and plates and occasionally to the margins of the text, are otherwise clean throughout and without stamps or inscriptions. A very attractive example, uncommon in the publisher's full morocco binding.

'Nicholas Nickleby', Charles Dickens' third full-length novel, was originally serialised as 20 numbers in 19 monthly parts between April 1838 and October 1839, the final part being a double number. It was first published in book form on October 23, 1839, with the publisher offering three different bindings: cloth, half morocco with marbled edges and full morocco with gilt edges. The publisher also offered a binding service for owners of the parts, advertised with an inset in the final part, with the same binding options. Copies bound from the parts can identified by the stab-holes near the gutter, as seen here, where the parts were originally sewn in wraps, as opposed to the newly printed copies intended specifically for the book form, which have no holes. This example with one of the first four plates in the first state (with publisher's imprint), and most of the earliest text points noted in Smith. During the writing of 'Nicholas Nickleby' Dickens and his illustrator Halbot K. "Phiz" Browne made research trips by stagecoach to Yorkshire and its infamous cheap boarding schools that are heavily criticised in the novel. Such schools were repeatedly accused of mistreatment and neglect of their pupils, with some cases resulting in blindness or even death. Dickens' popularity had soared with the publishing phenomenon 'The Pickwick Papers' in 1936, and 'Nicholas Nickleby' and its central reforming theme received a huge readership. The novel had a significant hand in the dismantling of the Yorkshire school industry in the 1840s. (Smith, Part 1: 5).