Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens, Illustrated by H. K. Browne, Early Printing in Two Volumes, 1848

Dickens, Charles. Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son, Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation. London: Bradbury & Evans, 1848. Illustrated by H. K. Browne. Early printing. Two volumes. Octavos. In 3/4 green leather over marbled boards, spines with blind and gilt tooling and black leather labels titled in gilt.

Presented is an early printing of Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son, Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation by Charles Dickens. This early printing was published in London by Bradbury & Evans in 1848. The two volumes are bound in handsome 3/4 green leather over marbled boards, with spines with blind and gilt tooling and black leather labels titled in gilt. The two volumes feature a frontispiece, illustrated title page, and numerous plates by Hablot Knight Browne. Issued after the first edition, first printing, this printing has an “Errata” with eleven lines of corrections. 

Following the success of his early novels, beginning with The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club in 1836, Dickens experienced a significant change in his publishing arrangements during the 1840s. After a disagreement with Chapman and Hall over the comparatively disappointing profits from A Christmas Carol in 1844, he turned to publishers William Bradbury and Frederick Mullett Evans, whose firm had initially operated as printers before becoming the proprietors of Punch. Dickens published several of his Christmas books through Bradbury and Evans, including The Battle of Life in December 1846, and entrusted the firm with the serialization of his seventh novel, Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation. 

Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son appeared in nineteen monthly installments between October 1846 and April 1848, with the final installment issued as a double issue. The parts generally contained three chapters apiece, although the twelfth number, published in September 1847, included four chapters, and the concluding double-issue, issued in April 1848, contained chapters 58 through 62. Each installment cost one shilling, save for the last installment which cost two shillings as a double-issue. For the story, Dickens collaborated with his longtime illustrator Hablot Knight Browne, better known under his pen-name Phiz, whose illustrations complemented the story’s extensive cast of memorable figures. Following the completion of serialization, Bradbury and Evans published the novel as Dombey and Son in London, 1848. 

Dombey and Son was very well received in its time. An October 1849 review in North American Review wrote that “...[Dombey and Son] illustrates those peculiarities of his genius observable in [Dickens'] other works, with a little more certainty of touch in ideal delineation. It is a fresh creation of his unexhausted mind, in which the old manner is reproduced to introduce new matter. Here, as in his other novels, the characters are everything and the story nothing; but the characters are sufficiently original, various, and numerous to compensate for far greater defects of plot and design. Captain Cuttle, Bunsby, Sol Gills, Major Bagstock, Pinch, Toodle, Toots, Mrs. Chick, Susan Nipper, Lucretia Tox, Rob, the lady whose husband invested in the Peruvian mines, not to mention others, are personages whose acquaintance once made is never broken. The beauty and pathos of the work cluster around Paul and Florence, and in these exquisite creations Dickens has exceeded the previous promise of his powers.” 

CONDITION:

Good+ condition. Early UK edition, “Errata” with eleven lines of corrections. Two volumes. Octavos. In 3/4 green leather over marbled boards, spines with blind and gilt tooling and black leather labels titled in gilt. Wear to boards, scratches to marbled paper, bumping along corners and heads and tails of spine. Gilt remains bright, but paper labels have started to chip. Sunning to green leather on the spine. Matching marbled endpapers. Clean and bright text pages, save occasional small stains. Illustrated with engravings by Browne. Plates with more significant edge tanning and foxing. 

REFERENCES:

“Review of Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son. Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation, by Charles Dickens.” The North American Review 69, no. 145 (October 1849): 383–407.

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