The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit

London: Chapman and Hall, 1844. First edition. Hardcover. g to vg. Octavo (8 3/8 x 5 1/2"). xiv, [2], 624pp. Contemporary 3/4 burgundy calf over marbled paper covered boards, with gold lettering and tooling to spine. Raised bands. Marbled paper edges. Engraved frontispiece and additional title.

Originally serialized between 1842 and 1844, Charles Dickens' "The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit" is considered the last of his picaresque novels. Although Dickens thought it to be his best work, it turned out to be one of his least successful novels.

Like nearly all of Charles Dickens' novels, "Martin Chuzzlewit" was released to the public in monthly instalments. Early sales of the monthly parts were disappointing, compared to previous works, so Dickens changed the plot to send the title character to America. This allowed the author to portray the United States (which he had visited in 1842) satirically as a near wilderness with pockets of civilization filled with deceptive and self-promoting hucksters.

The main theme of the novel, according to a preface by Dickens, is selfishness, portrayed in a satirical fashion using all the members of the Chuzzlewit family. The novel is also notable for two of Dickens' great villains, Seth Pecksniff and Jonas Chuzzlewit. It is dedicated to Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts, a friend of Dickens.

This work is splendidly illustrated throughout with forty steel-engravings including frontispiece and title-page vignette by Hablot K. Brown aka "Phiz."

First edition in book form, with the following first state points: Engraved title leaf with "100£" on the sign-post, later corrected to £100; 13-line Errata (page xv), later expanded to 14 lines. For more information, see: Chapter I, page 7 of Walter E. Smith's "Charles Dickens in the Original Cloth: A Bibliographical Catalogue of His Writings in Book Form in England with Facsimiles of the Bindings and Title Pages").

Binding rubbed along edges. Previous owner's armorial bookplate on inside of front cover (Boyd, Alexander), with the motto: "Fidem serva." Heavy foxing to frontispiece and engraved title. Very minor and sporadic light foxing to text pages. The plates have light to moderate foxing which is mainly confined to the blank margins. Binding in overall good to good+, interior in good to very good condition.