Dickens, Bleak House, 1853, first edition in book form, variant publisher's cloth

DICKENS, CHARLES

Bleak House. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1853

8vo (222 x 140mm.), FIRST EDITION IN BOOK FORM, frontispiece, illustrated title-page and 38 plates by or after Phiz ('Hablot K. Browne'), half-title, publisher's moderate olive green fine-diaper cloth, covers with two line blind-stamped border enclosing rectangular frame with loop-scroll design in each corner and a lineal globe-shaped design at centre, spine in blind stamped panels with lettering in gilt, pale yellow endpapers, collector's chemise and brown morocco backed slipcase, plates occasionally offset and browned in margins, binding slightly rubbed and soiled, spine slightly faded, slightly bumped at head and foot of spine, lower hinge slightly split, minor split to head of lower joint

A RARE BINDING VARIANT. Smith notes a copy with 'MDCCCLIII' at the foot of the spine as a 'binding variant' stating that he had seen only one copy and that the half-title was missing. The present copy includes the half-title.

REFERENCE:

Smith I:10; Sadleir 682

PROVENANCE:

J. Maclehose, bookseller's label; Miss Isabella G. Campbell, contemporary ownership inscription dated May 1854 on half-title; Douglas C. Ewing, booklabel, his sale, Christie's New York, 7 April 1978, lot 77; Richard Manney, booklabel, his sale, Sotheby's New York, 11 October 1991, lot 97