Fine Printed Books & Manuscripts, Including Americana

3 volumes, 8vo (187 x 117 mm). (A few faint spots to title-pages and preliminary blanks; lacking ads as usual.) Late 19th-century half polished calf, marbled boards, spines in 6 compartments with 5 raised bands, dark olive and citrus morocco lettering-pieces in 2, others completely gilt, marbled edges (light rubbing to joints and fore-corners, a few small stains to textblock fore-edge). Provenance: early ownership signature on front fly-leaf dated 1874.

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE with no edition statements on title-pages and containing the earliest state of every point outlined in the detailed analysis found in the Clarendon edition of Great Expectations (1993, Appendices C & D). A full list of issue points is available upon request.

As in the Lawrence Drizen copy sold in 2019 at Sotheby’s and in the Clarendon edition, the third volume here contains the numeral “3” in the pagination on p. 103, and the “i” in “inflexible” on p. 193, which are sometimes missing in copies of the first impression of the third volume, indicating THE PRESENT COPY IS AMONG THE EARLIER PRINTINGS OF THE FIRST IMPRESSION. This copy also has the early reading of vol. III, p.193 with “himself” and “very carefully” on separate lines.
Smith comments that “the rarity of the first issue of Great Expectations has been attributed to the probable small binding-up of copies with the first title-page, coupled with the fact (according to C.P. Johnson, “Hints to Collectors”) that “the first edition was almost entirely taken up by the libraries.” Only 1,000 copies of the first issue and 750 copies of the second were printed, and most of the first and more than half of the second (1400 copies in all) were probably purchased by Mudie’s Select Library. Eckel, pp. 91-93; Gimbel A146; Sadleir 688; Smith I:14; Great Expectations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993, Appendix D).