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Bleak House
Charles Dickens, 1852-1853
DICKENS, Charles (1812-1870). Bleak House. London: Bradbury & Evans, March 1852-September 1853.
First edition, in original parts. This edition contains ten "Dark Plates," which required two distinct etchings and provide an effect equivalent to mezzotinting. Phiz's other plates were largely produced by a new method of lithographic transfers from the steels. Dickens alternates third-person present tense narration with a first-person past tense one by Esther Summerson, and the plot concerning the secret of her parentage provides "a panoramic view of English society and institutions, from the Dedlocks with their great country house of Chesney Wold, to the London slum of Tom-all-Alone's, using the Court of Chancery, where the seemingly interminable case of 'Jarndyce and Jarndyce' is heard, as a centre" (Dickens Index). Eckel 79-81, Hatton & Cleaver 275-304, Podeschi/Gimbel A130.
20 parts in 19, octavo. Half-title, with all of the “Bleak House Advertiser” advertisements and slips as called for by Hatton & Cleaver except for “W.Mott” and “Waterloo & Sons” in part 1, “Crochet Cotton” in part 10, and “Grace Aguilar’s Works” in part 16. Frontispiece, additional title, and 38 plates by Hablot K. Browne (some toning, offsetting). Original blue-green pictorial wrappers (minor repairs to spines of most parts; more significant repairs to part 19/20). Custom dark green and brown half morocco box.