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Original 1853 First Edition of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House
Guns International #: 102192987 Seller's Inventory #:
Category: Books and Magazines - Collectibles - Civil War
Seller's Information
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Seller: James Carr's Antique Guns and Collectibles
Member Since: 3/8/15
First Name: James
Last Name: Carr
State: Colorado
Zip: 81403
Country: United States
Phone: (703) 431-3159
Number of Active Listings: 20
Total Number of Listings: 127
Seller: Private Seller
Return Policy: 3 day inspection and return policy on used guns.
Payment Types Accepted: Zelle, money orders or checks with cleared funds
Description:
Bleak House is a novel by Charles Dickens, initially produced as 20 serial episode pamphlets between March 1852 and September 1853, with the entire novel first published in book form in 1853. The novel has many characters and several sub-plots, and is told partly by the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and partly by an omniscient narrator. At the center of Bleak House is a long-running legal case in the Court of Chancery entitled Jarndyce and Jarndyce, which comes about because a testator has written several conflicting wills. In a preface to the 1853 first edition, Dickens claimed there were many actual precedents for his fictional case. One of these precedents he alluded to was the Thellusson v Woodford case in which a will read in 1797 was contested and not determined until 1859! Though many in the legal profession criticized Dickens's satire as exaggerated, this novel helped support a judicial reform movement which culminated in the enactment of legal reforms in the 1870s.
The Book’s Legacy
Legal corruption permeates this novel like a disease, issuing in particular from the Jarndyce lawsuit with which all the book’s characters have some connection. Dickens provides his customary witty dissection of the layers of Victorian society. characters—from the wearyingly earnest to the brilliantly shallow, from the foolish and foppish to the self seeking and dangerous. All are illuminated as the novel unfolds. In reality, it is the public sphere as a whole that is satirized in Bleak House. Everything that resembles Chancery: Parliament, the provincial aristocracy, and even the philanthropists of the time, are caricatured as moribund and self-serving. The narrative, which is split between the third person and Esther, concerns moral disposition as much as social criticism. Most literary critics consider Bleak House to be the best novel that Charles Dickens ever wrote. Daniel Burt, in his book The Novel 100: A Ranking of the Greatest Novels of All Time, ranks Bleak House number 12. The novel is also recognize as the originator of the genre of detective fiction, with the methodical and dogged Inspector Bucket as the first police detective hero in English literature.
The First Edition Example Now For Sale
The book for sale was originally published by Bradbury & Evans in 1853. It is a first edition, first issue, identified as such from the titling pages and confirmed by all of the three typographical errors associated with the novel’s first edition, first issue: P.19, line 6: "elgble"; P.209, line 23: "chair" instead of "hair"; and P.275, line 22: "counsinship" instead of "cousinship." The book was most recently purchased in 1983 in London from an antique book dealer for a presentation gift. As indicated inside the front cover it is an original first edition of the novel, rebound from original parts. It is bound in three quarter calf over marbled boards, with gilt titling and tooling to the spine, and marbled end pages. The board is firm and binding is tight. The book is illustrated with all 40 of the original plates by H.K. Browne, which include the frontpiece, title-page and the 10 "dark plates." Other than some faint foxing on the corners of a few pages, the book is in excellent condition inside and out. This collectible is unique by completeness and condition.
My price is $550, with free shipping to a recipient within the continental United States.
I only sell and ship to residents in the Continental US. I only accept payment by USPS money order or check once cleared.
Price: $550.00