Beschreibung:

DICKENS, CHARLESThe Mystery of Edwin Drood. London: Chapman & Hall, April - September 1870 6 parts, 8vo (8 3/4 x 5 5/8 in.; 223 x 142 mm). 14 wood-engraved plates after Luke Fildes engraved portrait with facsimile signature, engraved and letterpress title-pages, publisher's notice, and 4-page list of contents and illustrations in part 6; "Cassell, Petter, and Galpin Publications" in part 2 browned, minor marginal spotting to plates in part 4, part 5 lacking "A High Class Weekly Journal" and 8-page Chapman & Hall advertisements at the back, part 6 lacking Wilcox & Gibbs 4-page "Concerning Stitches" advertisement. Original printed green wrappers, "Price Eighteenpence" overslip on front wrapper of part 6; minor soiling, extremities of part 6 slightly frayed, small chip to upper right corner of front wrapper of part 6. First edition, first issue, in the original monthly parts "His gaze wandered from the windows to the stars, as if he would have read in them something that was hidden from him. Many of us would, if we could; but none of us so much as know our letters in the stars yet - or seem likely to do it, in this state of existence - and few languages can be read until their alphabets are mastered." Dickens died on the 9th of June 1870, and Edwin Drood was left unfinished (only six of the twelve instalments had been published at that point), without any detailed plans or notes for its completion. LITERATURE:Eckel 96-8; Hatton & Cleaver 373-84 PROVENANCE:Irwin Silver (his sale, Sotheby's New York, 26 April 2005, lot 46)Condition ReportCondition as described in catalogue entry. The lot is sold in the condition it is in at the time of sale. The