Beschreibung:

Property from the Workman Collection
Dickens, CharlesThe Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. London: Chapman and Hall, April 1836 - November 1837
20 parts in 19 (224 x 140 mm). 43 engraved plates including engraved title by R. Seymour, R.W. Buss, and Hablot K. Browne; margin torn in part 4 and one chipped in part 6, second issue of text in parts 1-5, lacking the Dickens "Address" leaf in part 2 and the publisher's "Address" leaf in part 3, plates loose in part 1, a few plates slightly spotted, a few others with small marginal repairs, mixed first and second states of the plates. Original green pictorial printed wrappers, part 16 dated 1837, all others dated 1836; minor tears or wear to spines, a few neat repairs, fore-edge of front wrapper of part 19/20 cut close touching border, later issues of wrappers on parts 1-4 and 6-8, lacking all inserted advertisements in parts 1 and 3-8 (none called for in part 2), the Pickwick Advertiser in part 9 from another part, the one in part 11 with a leaf lacking, an inserted 4-page advertisement in part 13 and in part 15 lacking, but with all other inserted advertisements present. Housed in custom pull-off cases and folding chemises.  
First edition in original parts of the author's first novel.
 "The appearance of a fresh number of Pickwick soon became news, an event, something much more than literature. 'Boz has got the town by the ear', a critic said, and he spoke the truth. Each number sold for a shilling and they were passed from hand to hand, and butchers' boys were seen reading them in the streets. Judges and politicians, the middle classes and the rich, bought them, read them and applauded; and the ordinary people saw that he was on their side, and they loved him for it..." (Tomalin 67-68).
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club was initially conceived of as a series of comic sketches written to accompany monthly sporting plates by Robert Seymour Dickens had had the idea of a comic character, Mr Pickwick, a rich retired businessman with a taste for good food and drink, an innocent and playful character, well described later by W.H. Auden as "a pagan god wandering through the world imperviously." For the first month the work met with little success, but then, following the suicide of the illustrator Seymour, Dickens took over the project, altered the concept, and introduced the character of Sam Weller, Pickwick's cockney servant, in Part 4 to immediate public approval. Searching for a replacement illustrator, Dickens commissioned the young "Phiz" who worked on the remainder of the work and became his most sympathetic and consistent of illustrators. From this moment on sales of the monthly numbers rose steadily and then spectacularly, the names and characters in Dickens' novel becoming common currency, and the enormous public success of the novel accompanied by great critical acclaim.
Only about 400 sets of Part 1 were issued on the day of publication from a print-run of 1000, with subsequently only 500 sets of part 2 being printed. Both eventually sold out, necessitating reprints of both parts before publication of Part 3. The text to Parts 1 - 8 was reprinted many times at very early dates leading to textual variations; with reprinting, older plates had to be re-etched; with the increase in popularity advertisements changed, were cancelled and added, all leading to a complex series of issue points for text, plates and advertisements.
A lovely set of a beloved work. 
REFERENCE:Eckel 17-578; Hatton and Cleaver 3-88
PROVENANCE:"T. Berney" (written in ink in the same hand on the front wrapper of 16 parts) — Christie's New York, 21 February 1996, lot 47 — Victor B. Levit (bookplates to chemises)