Dickens, Charles | "Please, sir, I want some more."

Property from an Important American Collection

(Dickens, Charles)

Oliver Twist; or, the Parish Boy's Progress. By "Boz." London: Richard Bentley, 1838

3 volumes, 12mo (202 x 127 mm, uncut). Etched frontispieces and 21 other plates by George Cruikshank, including the "Fireside" plate in vol. 3, half-titles with Bentley ads verso in first two vols. (as called for), preliminary ad leaf in vol. 3, 2 leaves of publisher's ads at end of vol. 1, without the list of illustrations sometimes found in vol. 1; most plates edge-browned and with imprints shaved or cropped as usual, title-pages a bit spotted or soiled and that for vol. 3 with a tiny abrasion affecting a letter of the sub-title, some other occasional browning and finger-soiling, but withal a fine copy.

Publisher's horizontally-ribbed maroon cloth, covers stamped in blind with a large arabesque centerpiece, flat spines ruled in blind and lettered in gilt, yellow coated endpapers; spine very slightly faded and a trifle cocked, joints lightly rubbed, some small stains. Half maroon morocco folding-case.

First edition, first issue, published prior to the completion of the novel's periodical appearance in Bentley's Miscellany. The Inimitable began writing Oliver Twist when The Pickwick Papers was scarcely half completed and had taken up Nicholas Nickleby before it was finished. Richard Bentley serialized Oliver Twist in his eponymous magazine, for which Dickens served as editor, from February 1837 through April 1839 (no installment appeared in the June and October 1837 issues), but decided to publish the complete novel as a triple-decker before the serialization had run its course.

In part inspired by Dickens own experiences in a workhouse at the age of twelve, the novel also includes extensive criticism, masked in satire, of the British legal system. 

REFERENCES:

Gimbel/Podeschi A27; Smith I:4; cf. Sadleir 696

PROVENANCE:

Elizabeth Rebecca Trotter (1775–1852; signature on the front free endpapers of the first two volumes, "The Marchioness of Thomond") — Lt. Col. Stucley (armorial bookplate; evidently Lt.-Col. Sir William Lewis Stucley, 2nd Baronet, 1836–1911)