Master Humphrey's Clock: The Old Curiosity Shop; Barnaby Rudge

306; 306; 426pp. Thick octavo [24.5 cm] 3/4 green leather with marbled paper over boards, and a leather title label (with Master Humphrey's Clock and Barnaby Rudge stamped in gilt) and triple gilt-ruled compartments on the spine. Red speckled edges. Extremities rubbed. Sunning to the spine and the surrounding area of the front board. A bit of chipping to the leather at the head of the spine. Previous owner's ink stamp on the front pastedown. Text block cracked at the rear. Pages lightly foxed (roughly a dozen or so more prominently). Small paper repair to fore-edge margin of a couple of the pages. Missing p. 181/82 in volume 1. Paper repairs to the top and fore-edge margins of p. 218 in volume 2. With two full-page illustrations (frontispieces- one at the beginning of the book, and one at the opening of "Barnaby Rudge) and many illustrations integrated into the text. The book is lacking the Preface for Volume 1. Instead, it opens with the Preface of volume 2 dated "Devonshire Terrace, London, March, 1841." No title page in volume 2. Volume 3 lacks the frontispiece, title page, as well as the preface. All internal flaws present as pointed out in Smith, with the exception of two: 1) period present after "however" (Vol. 1, p. 220); 2) "That's" with apostrophe (Vol. 2, p. 113). However, Smith states that these MAY be missing, not that they must be missing. Eckel p. 67-70. Smith, Part 1: 6. With illustrations by George Cattermole and Hablot Browne ("Phiz"). Master Humphrey's Clock (Embracing The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge). Three volumes in one. A work which consists of a tale, in which Master Humphrey reads two stories- "The Old Curiosity Shop" and "Barnaby Rudge"- aloud to his friends. The earliest form of publication of "Master Humphrey's Clock" was in weekly numbers, commencing on April 4th, 1840, running through December 4th, 1841, and issued as a folded sheet of sixteen pages and bound in green paper wrappers. The publication of these stories in this way was one of the first of several experiments which Dickens applied to several succeeding books. Dickens felt that his readers had grown tired of stories in monthly issues on account of the lapse of time between the numbers. The serial short story forms of "The Old Curiosity Shop" and "Barnaby Rudge" (Dickens's first attempt at a historical novel) represent the first appearances of these two stories, which were later published as novels. First edition in book form (three volumes in one edition). …