Bleak House Dickens, Charles Literature & Fiction

Thick 8vo, rebound in modern dark brown half leather with gilt title and five raised bands over marbled boards, illustrated by Hablot K. Browne (aka "Phiz") with steel-engraved frontispiece and etched title leaf, plus 38 finely engraved (& electro-typed) plates [10 often called "dark" because of cross-hatching technique]; page-edges marbled; new endpapers, [9] viii-xvi + 624 pages. Weight: 2 lbs. 4.6 oz. First Edition (in cloth: rebound in half leather) with many early "points" [37 of 40 listed in Walter E. Smith]; among them: three typographical errors:"elgble" on page 19 line 6; "chair" on page 209, line 23; "counsinship" on page 275. Originally published in 20 numbers in 19 parts (the last two numbers published in one part) between March 1852 and September 1853, published in one volume 12th Sept. 1853. Solid copy handsomely rebound in dark brown half calf. No previous markings by owners or readers. Light to moderate toning to plates.mainly surrounding the images. The 10 "Dark Plates" generally have well defined images and black tones. No loose pages. Gimble A131. Sadleir 682. Walter E. Smith, Charles Dickens in the Original Cloth: A Bibliographical Catalogue, Part I, pp.[79]-84. Hablot Knight Browne, well known by his pen name "Phiz", was an English illustrator who contributed to ten of Dickens' books, among them David Copperfield, BLEAK HOUSE, and Dombey and Son. Narrated by Esther Summerson, Dickens's novel concerns the long running fictional legal case, "Jarndyce and Jarndyce," in the Court of Chancery. The interminable case involved conflicting wills written by the same person. Inspired by a true story, Dickens' brilliant novel contributed to British judicial reform that bore fruit in the 1870's Judicature Acts. "The Dickens cosmos, his phantasmagoric London and visionary England, emerges in Bleak House with a clarity and pungency that surpasses the rest of his work, before and after" (Bloom, 311). Half leather over marbled boards