UNCLE TOM'S CABIN by Stowe, Harriet Beecher - 1852

1852. [illustrated by Cruikshank] With Twenty-Seven Illustrations on Wood by George Cruikshank, Esq. London: John Cassell, 1852. 1+8 pp ads, undated except for pre-notification of Cassell's 1853 almanacs. Original blind-stamped blue cloth with gilt-decorated spine, all page edges gilt. First English Edition (? -- see below). Since Harriet Beecher Stowe's monumental novel was unprotected by international copyright, as soon as it was published in America it was immediately published in some thirty editions in England. In what is labeled the "first English edition" by Hildreth, John Cassell produced the only edition to appear serially (13 parts, the first with three plates by the famous illustrator George Cruikshank, and the other parts with two each). This is the book form of that serial part edition -- by which time there were, in fact, several editions by several London publishers that vie for the honor of being "first." The Cassell edition is sought not so much for being "first" but for being the earliest edition to be substantially illustrated -- on either side of the Atlantic. This is a very good-plus copy, perhaps near-fine (very minor wear at the extremities, spine gilt a little dull). Hildreth pp 8-9.