Great Expectations by Dickens, Charles - 1861

Chapman and Hall, London, 1861 First Edition, First Printing, fifth issue. Three volumes, including the publisher's catalog dated August 1861 at the rear of Volume III. Bound in the ORIGINAL publisher's ribbed purple cloth binding, with ruling and decorations in blind to boards, lettering and decorations in gilt to spine. Each volume with bright boards, toning to the spines, wear to the extremities, some light rubbing across. Volume I, with spine cracked at front hinge, former owner's signature to the dedication page. Volumes II and III each starting at front hinges, former owner's signature to the title pages. Each volume with otherwise intact spines and extremely bright and clean interiors. This copy has the majority of the first issue points, with only a few of the corrections that were made after the first issue. Overall, a clean and attractive set, extremely rare in the unsophisticated publisher's cloth. Smith I, 14. Great Expectations was originally published serially in All the Year Round, the author's literary magazine, in thirty-six weekly issues from December 1860-August 1861. It is one of Dickens' two novels that was not illustrated in the first book edition, the other being Hard Times. The first issue of the first edition, published on July 6, 1861, was followed by four subsequent issues of the same edition, published on August 5, August 17, September 21, and October 30 of the same year. Smith notes that "These first five issues were probably printed at a single impression and published with altered title pages to imply and encourage a rapid sale In all five issues, the same misprints persist." Thus, the first five issues are essentially the same first edition with varying title pages, printed simultaneously and issued in successive intervals. While some of the first issue's misprints were fixed, the corrections were not all-encompassing, yielding a variety of misprints and corrections in the first issues. For example, this volume contains some of the later issue corrections, but includes an earlier catalog that was also published in earlier issues. The first issue, which included a print run of 1,000 copies was "almost entirely taken up by the libraries," leaving only a few hundred copies for private ownership and increasing the rarity of a privately-owned later issue of the first printing. Great Expectations is Dickens' thirteenth novel. Like his 1850 novel David Copperfield, it is a bildungsroman that follows the protagonist's life from childhood to adulthood and is written entirely in the first-person. Great Expectations tells the story of a young orphan boy named Pip and his "great expectations" of becoming a gentleman and receiving his benefactor's wealth and property. A classic Victorian novel, Great Expectations features many of Dickens' recurring themes, including orphans, prison life, and Victorian society. Overall, a solid unrestored, uniform set, all original and not made up or supplied from other copies. An affordable copy in collector's condition. We buy Dickens First Editions!!!. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine.