A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens, Charles Fine Bindings and Sets

First edition, first issue of one of Dickens' most enduring works. Octavo, bound in three quarters morocco with gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, all edges gilt, illustrated with sixteen plates after H.K. Browne including the frontispiece and title vignette. In very good condition. The most famous and possibly the most popular of Dickens's novels, A Tale of Two Cities shows a master of dramatic narrative extracting gold from the ore of history. If the bloody tableau of the French Revolution were not in itself sufficient for a dozen novels, Dickens added to it a professional resurrectionist, an authentic ogress, and an antihero as convincingly flawed as any in modern literature. â Dickens had always admired Carlyleâ s History of the French Revolution, and asked him to recommend suitable books from which he could research the period; in reply Carlyle sent him a â cartloadâ of volumes... So great was [Dickensâ ] enthusiasm for the story that it had indeed â taken in possessionâ of him... The force of the novel springs from its exploration of darkness and death but its beauty derives from Dickensâ real sense of transcendence, from his ability to see the sweep of destinyâ (Ackroyd, 858). The last of Dickensâ books to be illustrated by H.K. Browne (â Phizâ ), with 16 engraved plates by him. â Browne, for 23 years responsible for all the etchings which had so successfully embellished these [Dickensâ ] books, produced his last drawings for the present work... Bradbury and Evans, the printers of all and publishers of five of Dickensâ works as issued in monthly parts, had ceased to act in this dual capacity after completion of Little Dorrit... [resulting] in the return of Chapman and Hall as publishers of this and all succeeding worksâ (Hatton & Cleaver, 333).