The Personal History of David Copperfield - Charles DIckens, H. K. Browne aka ‘Phiz’ (Illustrator)

1850 - Bradbury & Evans, London - First Edition
‘Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.’

A handsomely bound first edition of arguably Charles Dickens’ most acclaimed work, wonderfully illustrated throughout with 39 engraved plates and engraved title page vignette by Hablot Knight Browne aka ‘Phiz’.

‘In this book of
David Copperfield, [Dickens] has created creatures who cling to us and tyrannise over us, creatures whom we would not forget if we could, creatures whom we could not forget if we would, creatures who are more actual than the man who made them.’ – G. K. Chesterton

The story of a boy making his way in the world, and finding himself as a man and as a writer. In the first half, before Dickens's irrepressible storytelling kicks in and the motor of the novel starts to hum with incident, we find him almost meditating on his literary beginnings. The second half displays Dickens at his magnificent, and often uneven, best. There are the characteristic prose arpeggios, the virtuoso similes and metaphors, and the parade of timeless characters: Mr Micawber, Mrs Gummidge, Betsey Trotwood, Barkis, Uriah Heep, Steerforth, Mr Spenlow (of Spenlow and Jorkins) and Miss Mowcher.
 
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Price HK$ 22,000



1848 - Bradbury and Evans, London - First Edition
A handsomely bound first edition, Illustrated throughout with 39 engraved plates and engraved title page vignette by Hablot Knight Browne aka ‘Phiz’.

‘Dombey and Son
is both a firm and a family and the ambiguous connection between public and private life lies at the heart of Dickens' novel. Paul Dombey is a man who runs his domestic affairs as he runs his business: calculatingly, callously, coldly and commercially.

Through his dysfunctional relationships with his son, his two wives, and his neglected daughter Florence, Dickens paints a vivid picture of the limitations of a society dominated by commercial values and the drive for profit and explores the possibility of moral and emotional redemption through familial love.’
 
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Price HK$ 10,000



1860 - Chapman and Hall, London - First Edition, Third Issue
The storming of the Bastille… the death carts with their doomed human cargo… the swift drop of the guillotine blade. The sinister Madame Defarge, knitting her patterns of death; the gentle Lucie Manette, unswerving in her devotion to her broken father; Charles Darnay, the lover with a secret past; and dissolute Sydney Carton, whose unlikely heroism gives his life meaning.

With sixteen engraved plates by "Phiz", including a frontispiece and vignette title page.
 
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Price HK$ 9,000



The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit - Charles DIckens, Hablot Knight Browne “Phiz” (illustrator)

1844 - Chapman and Hall, London - First Edition
A handsomely bound first edition of Dickens’ satirical comedy of hypocrisy, selfishness, and greed, the picaresque story of young Martin Chuzzlewit who, together with the scheming architect Pecksniff, journeys to America to seek his fortune.

With 39 engraved plates and engraved title page vignette by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz").

‘Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he’s well drest’. 
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Price HK$ 12,000



1865 - Chapman and Hall, London - First Edition
Handsomely bound first edition of Charles Dickens’s last complete novel and a glorious satire spanning all levels of Victorian society. Illustrated with forty engraved plates by Marcus Stone.

Our Mutual Friend centres on an inheritance – Old Harmon’s profitable dust heaps – and its legatees, young John Harmon, presumed drowned when a body is pulled out of the River Thames, and kindly dustman Mr Boffin, to whom the fortune defaults. With brilliant satire, Dickens portrays a dark, macabre London, inhabited by such disparate characters as Gaffer Hexam, scavenging the river for corpses; enchanting, mercenary Bella Wilfer; the social-climbing Veneerings; and the unscrupulous street-trader Silas Wegg. The novel is richly symbolic in its vision of death and renewal in a city dominated by the fetid Thames, and the corrupting power of money’. 
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Price HK$ 10,000