Description
The first edition, first issue of A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, published in London in 1859.
Octavo, viii, [2], 254pp, [4]. Three-quarter brown calf, brown cloth boards, marbled boards, top edge gilt. Bound by Riviere & Son of London. Light wear to tips of the spine, wear along front hinge, solid text block. Complete with engraved frontispiece, vignette title and 14 engraved plates, the last Dickens work to be illustrated by H.K. Brown “Phiz”. This work is the first issue, with page 213 misnumbered “113,” the misspelling of “affetcionately” on p. 134 (line 12), the “C. Whiting, Beaufort House, Strand” imprint on last leaf of text, but lacking the “B” on list of plates, as preferred by collectors.
(Eckel 87-90) (Gimbel A142) (Hatton & Cleaver, 333-342)
From the Myles Standish Slocum collection, a notable Pasadena book collector, with his signature.
A Tale of Two Cities first appeared in weekly installments in Dickens’s literary periodical, “All the Year Round,” beginning on April 30, 1859, and concluding on November 26, 1859. It was simultaneously issued in eight monthly parts by Chapman & Hall in London, with each part containing two illustrations by H.K. Browne (“Phiz”). Later that same year, this complete novel was released in a single-volume edition.
