Beschreibung:

DICKENS, CHARLES. Sketches by "Boz" [First Series, Illustrative of Every-day Life, and Every-day People. London: John Macrone 1836. 2 vols., 8vo, original dark green straight-grain morocco cloth, spines gilt-lettered, glazed orange endpapers, fore-edges uncut, recased, fore-corners a bit worn, endpapers badly discolored (oxidized); in a green half morocco slipcase (spine faded) with the volume below. FIRST EDITION OF THE AUTHOR'S FIRST BOOK, preceding the parts issue, 2 etched frontispieces and 14 plates by George Cruikshank ( most slightly discolored ), PRESENTATION COPY TO THOMAS BEARD, inscribed by Dickens at head of title-page of vol. 1: "Thomas Beard Esqre. From his sincere friend The Author." Beard was Dickens's oldest and one of his closest friends, and was best man at his wedding. It was Beard, already a Parliamentary reporter on the Morning Chronicle , who recommended Dickens as a colleague. In the same month -- August 1833 -- that the pen name "Boz" was born (in a sketch for the Monthly Magazine ), "Dickens achieved his ambition of becoming a regular Parliamentary reporter on a daily newspaper" (Edgar Johnson, Charles Dickens , New York, 1952, vol. 1, p. 93). Eckel, p. 11; Smith I, no. 1; Sadleir 699. [ With :] [C. DICKENS]. Sketches by Boz:...The Second Series. London: John Macrone 1837. 8vo, original rose-pink morocco cloth, blindstamped, spine gilt-lettered, uncut, rebacked with most of the original spine laid down. FIRST EDITION, Eckel's First Issue with no List of Illustrations; with "Vol. III" present and unerased on each plate; etched frontispiece, pictorial title-page and 8 plates by George Cruikshank 20-page publisher's catalogue dated December 1836 at end. Eckel, pp. 12-13; Smith I, no. 2; Sadleir 700. Provenance : Comte Alain de Suzannet, bookplate in each volume (sale, Sotheby, 22 November 1971, lot 4). (3)