Our Mutual Friend...With Illustrations By Marcus Stone.

London: Chapman and Hall, Piccadilly, [May, 1864 - November 1865]. 8vo, 20 monthly parts in 19 as issued, 32, [1]-32, [2], [8], [2], 8, [4], [2], [2], [2], [4]; 16, 33-64, 4, [2], [2], [4], [2]; 16, 65-96, [1], [2], [4], 8, [2]; 16, 97-128, 4, [1], [1], [4], [2], [4]; 16, [1], 129-160, [2], [2], [2]; 16, 161-192, [1], 4, 4, [1], [4], [8], 4, [2]; 16, 193-224, [1], [2], [1], [2], [4], [2]; [2], 16, 257-288, [2], [4], [4], [4], [1], 8, [4]; 16, 289-320, xi, [1], 4, [4]; 16, [1], [1]-32, [2], 4, [1]; [2], 16, [1], [1], 33-64, 4, [4], [2], [2]; 16, 65-96, [2]; 16, 97-128, 4; 16, 129-160, 4, 4; 16, [161]-192, 4, [2]; 16, 193-224, [2], [4], [8], [2]; 16, [1], 225-256, 4, 4, [2]; 16, 257-309, [viii], [2], [2], 4, [2], [1], [2], [2], 40 wood engraved plates. Original printed green wrappers with trade advertisements to inner sides as well as outside back wrappers, uncut, with a variety of ads and slips on teal, green, pink and white paper bound-in. Housed in a half green morocco and green cloth pull-off case with raised bands, gilt titling, and additional green cloth portfolio with flaps, case backstrip evenly sunned. Individual parts in very good condition, with only slight wear to wrappers and edges, internally they seem almost to have never been read. A complete set missing only a few ads mentioned in Hatton & Cleaver, with no visible signs that ads have been removed, and includes ads not mentioned in Hatton & Cleaver. § First edition in the original parts. The wood engravings and cover designs were for the first time charged to the skillful hand of Marcus Stone, the orphaned son of an old artist friend who worked in the “sentimental-realist style of 1860s book illustration” (OxfordDNB). Our Mutual Friend was Dickens’s last completed novel, written slowly due too increased occasions of illness, and a serious railway accident. Similar to Bleak House and Little Dorrit, Our Mutual Friend comprises the usual social satire, elaborate plotting, and sweeping views of contemporary society, differing most notably in the positive outcome of the central love stories. Eckel 96. Hatton and Cleaver 345-370.