[The Nonesuch Dickens.] The Complete Works and Letters, together with 'Dickensiana', Edited by Arthur Waugh, Hugh Walpole, Walter Dexter and Thomass Hatton. 25 vols. (including plate volume)

(Nonesuch Press.) DICKENS (Charles)

Published by /38, 1937

840 OF 877 SETS, the illustrations printed from the original steel plates or woodblocks (or electrotyped facsimiles of the original woodblocks), titles with Nonesuch device, each novel with colour facsimile of cover of first originally issued part, royal 8vo, original buckram by Leighton-Straker, in various complementary colours - apple-green, cream, black, blue, brown, dark green, fawn, maroon, orange, red and yellow, backstrips with uniform gilt-lettered black morocco labels, ('Dickensiana' in gilt-lettered blue linen, spine ends with slight wear, endpapers faintly toned), top edge gilt on the rough, others untrimmed, labels with a few chips, a couple of marks on backstrips of paler volumes, but generally clean and bright, very good. A handsome set of this attractive and highly readable edition. lauded by contemporary reviewers including 'The Scotsman': 'No more handsome edition of Dickens has yet appeared; nor is it easy to conceive of any which might surpass this one.' The edition was printed in a specially designed and newly cut face, Bulmer, based on a type created by William Martin at the end of the eighteenth century, its aim to be as inconspicuous as possible: 'In Dickens, the style is the man; the type must be neutral lest it alter the accents of the man.' ('Dickensiana') The advertising campaign for the set was unprecedented for the Press, including the extensive Retrospectus and Prospectus, 'Dickensiana', featuring lithograph reproductions printed at the Curwen Press, and the presence of a plate-block of one illustration in each set (thus setting the limitation at 877) from the original Chapman and Hall blocks which the press had acquired. This practice proved highly controversial, David Garnett, in the New Statesman and Nation, describing the dispersal of the historically significant plate-block collection as 'an act of vandalism', though he did admit that 'The Pickwick Papers', the first volume of the set to appear, 'was a most beautifully produced book.' (Dreyfus, p.243). The plate for this set is the woodblock (the scarcest block form of the sets) for the illustration 'Trying -on for the Doll's Dressmaker' by Marcus Stone, engraved by W.T. Green, with several proof pulls, including one mounted (slightly spotted), but without publisher's limitation letter. (Dreyfus 108). Seller Inventory # 73749

Bibliographic Details

Title: [The Nonesuch Dickens.] The Complete Works ...
Publisher: /38
Publication Date: 1937