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Volume 19 is "good" with four raised bands, title in gilt to red leather spine label; Volume XX is "Very good minus" with five raised bands, gilt devices bright to spine, some fraying to head of spine. Volume 19 smells old, but not objectionably so. This pair of bound volumes -- half leather over Dutch-marbled, paper-covered boards -- have similar bindings, but are not an exact matched pair. Volume 19 has plain endpapers; Vol. XX has marbled endpapers to match its boards. Volume 19 includes Numbers 451-476, Volume XX Numbers 477-501 of the weekly journal, founded and edited by Charles Dickens. The first volume contains the first two-thirds (23 installments, Jan. 4 through June 6, 1868), and the second volume the final third of Wilkie Collins' "The Moonstone" in the numbers of June 13 through Aug. 8, 1868, this serialization comprising the first complete publication of this celebrated classic of detective/mystery fiction. These are the final two volumes in the "old series" of the weekly literary magazine before Dickens instituted his "New Series," the announcement for which appears on the final page of Volume XX. T. S. Eliot called "The Moonstone . . . the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels in a genre invented by Collins and not by Poe." Dorothy Sayers praised it as "probably the very finest detective story ever written." Franklin Blake, the gifted amateur, is an early example of the gentleman detective, while the novel has also been described as perhaps the earliest police procedural, due to the portrayal of the highly competent Sergeant Cuff, the London policeman called in from Scotland Yard (whom Collins based on the real-life Inspector Jonathan Whicher, who solved the Constance Kent murder.) "The Moonstone," representing Collins' only complete reprisal of the popular "multi-narration" method he'd previously utilized in "The Woman in White," was first published in book form later in 1868 by Tinsley Brothers, London, that triple-decker now frequently fetching $4,000. Some scattered foxing to preliminary and final pages. (Page edges of Vol. XX are marbled, while page edges of Vol. 19 are plain, with faded burgundy topstain. Dutch marbling to boards and endpapers, while bright and attractive, appears to be a printed pattern.) This pair of bound volumes of the magazine -- containing the first complete appearance in print of Wilkie Collins' pioneer mystery "The Moonstone" -- now reduced from $1,700.
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