DICKENS, Charles (1812-70). The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London, 1837, 8vo, engraved plates, EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED, contemporary purple calf gilt. FIRST EDITION IN BOOK FORM, EARLY ISSUE.

DICKENS, Charles (1812-70).  The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. London: Chapman and Hall, 1837. 8vo (214 x 130mm). Wood-engraved frontispiece, additional wood-engraved title with vignette and 41 wood-engraved plates by R. Seymour and "Phiz" [i.e. H. K. Browne], EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED with 32 engraved plates signed "Sam Weller del." (lacks half title, hole in u6 with loss of a few letters, plates browned [as usual] with some mainly marginal spotting and staining, some light spotting and staining to text). 19th-century purple calf gilt by B. Fawcett of Driffield (label), marbled edges and endpapers (spine faded, extremities rubbed, some scuffing). Provenance: some old pencil annotation to endpapers. FIRST EDITION IN BOOK FORM, EARLY ISSUE, with issue points as follows: the vignette on the title with the sign reading 'Weller'; p.10 with mark between 'r' and 'u' in 'rum' in the last line; p.17 with the last 'e' broken; p.25 with the signature 'E' present; p.34 without the parenthesis in lines 14 and 15 from the bottom; p.244 with the quotation mark indistinct before 'Sir' in the 9th line; p.261 signed 'x2'; and p.303 without the second '3' in the page number. Eckel pp.17-78; Gimbel A15; Grolier English 78; Hatton and Cleaver pp.3-88; Smith I, 3.