David Copperfield Dickens, Charles 19th Century,19th Century Literature,British Literature,Fiction,Victorian Literature

May 1849 - November 1850. Illustrated with 40 plates by H.K. Browne ("Phiz"). First edition, first issue, with first issue point "Lile" for "Life" in p. 3 advertisement of Part 8. With most of the original advertisements, with the following exceptions: Part 1 lacking pp. 23-26 from Copperfield Advertiser at front, Parts 6, 10, 18, and 19/20 lacking "Waterlow and Sons" (8 pp.) at rear, Part 8 lacking scarce folding "Lett's Diaries for 1850" at rear, Part 12 lacking "Cheap Edition of the Works of Mr. Charles Dickens" (2 pp.) at rear, Part 13 lacking "New Illustrated Weekly Periodical for Ladies" slip (2 pp.) at rear, Part 16 lacking "Household Words" slip (4 pp.) following plates, Part 18 lacking "Now Publishing, Weekly | Eliza Cook's Journal" (1 leaf, verso blank) at rear, and Parts 19/20 lacking "Cundall and Addey's List of Illustrated Publications" (8 pp.), "New Work | Lewis Arundel" (2 pp.), and "The cheapest maps | Philip's Series | of | Large Sixpenny Maps" (2 pp.) at rear. Publisher's original blue-green wrappers, printed in black. Very good set, with light spotting, soiling, edgewear, and occasional toning to wrappers, spines repaired, chipping to Part 1 spine, minor repair to wrappers of Parts 4, 5, 9, 10, 14, and 19/20, some contemporary bookseller stamps and ownership signatures to front wrappers, and occasional spotting to pages and plates. Overall, a complete and excellent set, quite clean internally. David Copperfield follows the life of its protagonist from youth to adulthood, many of the events of which are said to mirror those of Dickens' own life. Dickens showed an unusual attachment to David Copperfield, writing, "Of all my books, I like this the best. It will be easily believed that I am a fond parent to every child of my fancy, and that no one can ever love that family as dearly as I love them. But, like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is David Copperfield." The story features some of Dickens' greatest characters, such as the villainous and groveling Uriah Heep, and the naively optimistic and perpetually poor Mr. Micawber, based on Dickens' own father. This copy features forty illustrations, including a frontispiece and vignette title page, by H.K. Browne, who had also designed the cover illustrations for the serialized story. All but three of the illustrations, which include one dark plate with high black-and-white contrast and twenty-one horizontal illustrations, are clearly signed by the illustrator's pseudonym Phiz. David Copperfield is the second Dickens novel in which Browne uses the dark plate and horizontal illustration techniques.