DICKENS, Charles. Pictures from Italy The Vignette Illustrations on Wood by Samuel Palmer. Bradbury & Evans, Whitefriars [London], 1846.

Price: US$750.00 + shipping

Condition: Very Good

Description: 12mo. Pp. [2] (two pages advertising new and revised edition of "Oliver Twist" and a new untitled novel (Dombey and Son, per Eckel), 269, [1], followed by two pages of Dickens titles. With the original backstrip, titled in gilt, bound-in. Bound in red morocco, gilt spine titles with compartments tooled in gilt with raised bands, triple rule gilt frames in gilt. Turn-ins rolled in gilt. Binding signed Zaehnsdorf. Top edge gilt. Endpapers with slight offsetting; front free endpaper with chip to lower corner; fore-edge with superficial dampstain. Corners a trifle worn and scuff on rear cover; joints expertly repaired with discrete tissue strengthening to joints. Please see photos. A handsome, presentable copy. A sumptuous Zaehnsdorf binding for Dickens' dispatches from Italy: The first few accounts were published 1846 in the paper he edited, The Daily News; five more were added to create Pictures from Italy, also 1846, presented here in the first issue of the first edition. Italy's built (and decayed) environment has been documented since Vitruvius. Dickens' brilliance? His depictions of street life, including a public execution. ECKEL, pp. 126-127; with all the points revealed by SMITH, Part II, p. 49.

Seller: Long Brothers Fine & Rare Books, ABAA, Seattle, WA, U.S.A.

DICKENS, Charles.. [Oliver Twist.] The Adventures of Oliver Twist or, The parish boy's progress. With 24 illustrations on steel by George Cruikshank. New edition, revised and corrected.. Bradbury & Evans. 1846, 1846.

Price: US$20610.15 + shipping

Description: Half title, plates. With the original green variant cloth casing, bound into full green crushed morocco by Rivière & Son, spine gilt in compartments, triple-ruled borders & dentelles in gilt; spine very sl. faded. A very handsome copy. In cloth slipcase. A beautiful copy of the first one-volume edition, EXTRA ILLUSTRATED with George Cruikshank's original watercolour design of Fagin in the Condemned Cell. This constitutes one of Cruikshank's finest and most recognisable Dickens illustration, portraying the wretched Fagin seated in his cell at Newgate, anxiously awaiting the day of his execution, and contemplating his demise. Bound in opposite the plate at p.304, the watercolour is signed by Cruikshank, and also adorned, in the lower margin, with a small self-portrait in pencil, and three further unidentified sketched portraits.

Seller: Jarndyce, The 19th Century Booksellers, London, United Kingdom