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Dickens was only 24 years old when he wrote The Pickwick Papers and after that, literary history was made. With booklet one in 1836, they printed 400 copies. Many experts who have written books about the history of this famous publication have said that trying to find a first run book of Pickwick is a "hopeless ambition." Not only is this copy first run, the beauty of the plates demonstrate they were very early off the press. With the next monthly booklet, they went up to 500 copies. By booklet 3, it was 1000 copies and it was a worldwide success - explosion. Eventually, they were printing 40,000 booklets at a time (per printing). Going back to the first booklet, they had to reprint the early booklets twenty times! That is a LOT of copies. This is a chance to be one of the only people on earth to own a true first printing of Charles Dickens's first book - this is as good as it gets for any collector. The gold gilded top edge has kept the soiling out. The pages are bright and clean as the photos will demonstrate. It was bound back in the day by the highly respected Zaehnsdorf Binding in London. After the third monthly part, it is fairly common to see first issue plates by Phiz - the serial was a huge worldwide success at this point; however, as stated in many books from people who have spent a lifetime studying and searching for this title, like Johannsen's book and Hatton and Cleaver's Book, later referenced by Walter Smith, etc., in the early plates in the first booklet, those "in the first state are particularly scarce, John F. Dexter (later cited again by Johannsen) suggesting that of the first issue of 400 copies of part 1, 'I very much doubt whether more than 50 impressions in first state were obtained from the first set of steels' (Johannsen, p.2)." In this copy for sale, amazingly, 8 of the 9 plates (9 plates would be to the end of book 3) are first issue! This is the holy grail! Hatton and Cleaver - one hundred years ago - suggested that to their knowledge, there were 13 known (of the 50 or so said to be printed in 1836) that have survived. This is one of those copies. I will list the first five plates from the most important Monthly Book Part 1 below where four of the first five plates are in the first state: Plate 1 (Pg. 2): Mr. Pickwick Addresses the Club: The buttons on Mr. Pickwick's vest are properly placed at the right of the parting line, that is, toward his left side. There are only two books on the table; however, at first sight there appear to be three. The 'g' on the page number at the bottom shows a curly tale. NOTE: This picture of Pickwick (by Seymour) followed the text so carefully (or vice versa), the thousands of other drawings that have since been drawn of Pickwick only satisfy based on this original. This first plate of Dickens's first work created the Pickwick phenomenon, launching Charles Dickens's career.Plate 2: (Pg. 7): The Pugnacious Cabman: The Tall Soldier in the background has no mustache. The glasses on the ground have one temple turned in. Plate 3: (Pg. 9): The Sagacious Dog: This plate is in the second state. The dog's tail is not as pointed. The hinges are not as shaded and the hasp on the gatepost does not stand out sharply from the foliage. Plate 4: (Pg. 17): Dr. Slammer's Defiance of Jingle: There are 10 floorboards; Dr. Slammer's left foot does not touch the crack in the floorboard, and Jingle's left foot is in the center of the second board; his other foot is entirely on the second step. Plate 5: (Pg. 31): The Dying Clown: The foot of the listener touches the hat on the floor; the pitcher on the shelf on the right is unshaded. Other issues of interest: both Buss plates are present; the footstool on the frontispiece is first issue (showing just four stripes).
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