Dombey and Son.

DICKENS, Charles.

$975.00

Item Number: 136227

London: Bradbury and Evans, 1848.

First edition in of Dickens’ novel of “Pride,” with 40 etchings by Hablôt Knight Browne (“Phiz”). Octavo, bound in three quarters morocco over marbled boards, gilt titles to the spine, raised bands, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt. With 40 engraved plates including frontispiece and engraved title by H. K. Browne. In near fine condition.

Dombey and Son "was well received by its readers, and is considered to be the first novel that reflects Dickens's artistic maturity… Dickens told his first biographer, 'It was to do with Pride what its predecessor [Martin Chuzzlewit] has done with Selfishness" (Schlicke, 280). The work "has a sense of the numinous, is more profoundly touched by the sense of last things, than any of Dickens' previous novels. It is larger in conception, so that human life is seen in terms of its beginning and its end, so that grief and forgiveness become more powerful forces within it… Dickens is aware of its status as art and provides here a simulacrum of human life touched by majesty and purpose" (Ackroyd, 526). The original serials contain the first of Browne's "dark plates" ("On the dark Road," in part 18), created by the engraver's lining machine and roulettes that tint the etched plate, creating heightened contrast (Johannsen, Phiz, 309).