Great Expectations; American Notes
Price: $250.00
Hard Cover. London: Chapman and Hall, 1866-67. Mixed Early Editions. Very Good.
Two volumes bound in one. With a frontispiece by Marcus Stone facing the title page of Great Expectations, and a frontispiece by an unknown artist facing the title page of American Notes. Mixed early editions, Great Expectations presumably from "The Works of Charles Dickens. Cheap editions" series and American Notes from "Dickens's works" series. Title page of second volume states "American Notes and Pictures from Italy" but Pictures from Italy is not bound in this volume (According to OCLC, the edition containing both American Notes and Pictures from Italy is 298 pages, but ours ends on p. 175, the final page of American Notes). Finely bound in half green calf, with green cloth-covered boards, five raised bands to spine, red and black labels to spine, gilt lettering and ruling to spine, marbled edges, marbled endpapers, and text printed in double columns. Very good, with bright gilt, light wear to spine ends, corners gently rubbed to boards, and light scuffing to boards. Overall, an attractively bound copy. One of Charles Dickens' most beloved novels, Great Expectations (1861) tells the story of a young orphan boy named Pip and his "great expectations" of becoming a gentleman and receiving his benefactor's wealth and property. As with many Dickens novels, Great Expectations features a fantastic cast of supporting characters, including the emotionally warped Miss Havisham, escaped convict Abel Magwich, and Pip's aloof love interest, Estella. The book was originally published serially in All the Year Round, the author's literary magazine, in thirty-six weekly issues from December 1860-August 1861 to help boost the magazine's dwindling readership. American Notes (1842) is Dickens' travelogue from his visit to the United States, during which time he visited such diverse cities as Boston, New York, Sandusky, and Cincinnati, among others. Although it has been interpreted as Anti-American, Dickens' American Notes was a critical review of the flaws of a culture that he also greatly enjoyed-- not unlike his critiques of British society and its institutions. Item #DC192
