BARNABY RUDGE; A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty

1841. With Illustrations by George Cattermole and Hablot K. Browne. Complete in One Volume. London: Chapman and Hall, 1841. Original blind-stamped olive green cloth.

First Separate Edition. After NICHOLAS NICKLEBY was published in monthly serial parts with separate plates in 1838-1839, Dickens decided that his future novels would be published in weekly serial parts that included the illustrations within the text -- loosely connected under the title of MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK. He began this project in April 1840 with his tale THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP; after forty-plus parts he completed that tale, and swung into the beginning of BARNABY RUDGE. In November 1841, after a total of 88 weekly parts, BARNABY RUDGE was complete. During this serialization, MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK (containing both novels) was also published in three volumes, one at a time; after serialization (in December 1841), each novel was also published separately in one volume, as with BARNABY RUDGE here. This is why the pagination of BARNABY RUDGE is odd -- with the text running from page [229] to page 306 (second half of Vol II of MH'sC), then from page [1] to page 420 (Vol III). At the conclusion of BARNABY RUDGE, Dickens abandoned this weekly method of plate-less serialization, and reverted to his prior method with MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. This copy is in the binding variant noted by Smith, of olive green fine-diaper cloth blind-stamped with a chain-like design running around the border's inner surface (as was later used on DOMBEY AND SON). The original endpapers are peach-coated -- one of several colors to be found, without known priority. The volume is in very good condition, with a bit of wear at the extremities of the spine and along the lower edges. The delicate original endpapers are only slightly cracked. Tough to find in better condition. Smith I pp 61-2.