Great Expectations.

DICKENS, Charles.

Item Number: 141508

London: Chapman and Hall, 1861.

First edition, second impression of Dickens’ popular Victorian bildungsroman. Octavo, three volumes bound in full contemporary tree calf, gilt tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, morocco spine labels lettered in gilt, triple gilt ruling and fleuron cornerpieces to the panels, gilt turn-ins and inner dentelles, marbled endpapers, all edge gilt, rebacked retaining the contemporary backstrips. In near fine condition. Bookplates. An exceptional set.

Dickens' penultimate novel, Great Expectations, was written in "the afternoon of [his] life and fame" (G.K. Chesterton). The novel contains some of Dickens' most memorable scenes, including its opening, set in a graveyard, when the young orphan Pip is accosted by escaped convict Abel Magwitch. Upon its release, the novel received near universal acclaim. Although Dickens' contemporary Thomas Carlyle referred to it disparagingly as "that Pip nonsense," he nevertheless reacted to each fresh instalment with "roars of laughter." Later, George Bernard Shaw praised the novel, as "all of one piece and consistently truthful." During the serial publication, Dickens was pleased with public response to Great Expectations and its sales; when the plot first formed in his mind, he called it "a very fine, new and grotesque idea."