Little Dorrit, finely bound from the original serialized installments in full tan calf by Zaehnsdorf and housed in a quarter Morocco Solander case Charles Dickens Other Fiction,Other Fine Bindings

This is the first edition, finely bound from the original nineteen monthly parts. As was custom with many Dickens novels, the publisher, Bradbury & Evans, originally serialized Little Dorrit between December 1855 and June 1857 before publication in book form, concurrent with the end of serialization, on 30 May 1857.The magnificent fine binding by Zaehnsdorf is full polished tan calf. The covers feature triple gilt rule borders with corner devices framing a blind-tooled inner border. The spine features raised bands, green title label in the second compartment, black author label in the fourth compartment, and a narrow green "1857" date label at the spine heel, each label gilt rule bracketed and tooled. Each unlabeled spine compartment features a central gilt rose motif framed by extensive gilt bracketing and tooling. The spine ends and cover edges are gilt-hatched. The contents are bound with red, green, and gold silk head and tail bands, gilt top edges, and marbled endpapers framed by gilt dentelle turn-ins. Condition of the binding is near fine, sharp-cornered, clean, tight, and square with sound joints and only trivial blemishes and scuffs. Curiously, "BOUND BY ZAEHNSDORF FOR G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS" is stamped on the lower left corner of the front free endpaper verso. The renowned Zaehnsdorf Bindery was founded in London in 1842 by Austria-Hungary-born Joseph Zaehnsdorf (1816-1886) and run by him, his son, and his grandson for over one hundred years. Asprey acquired Zaehnsdorf in 1983. Hence this binding predates Asprey's acquisition. The expressly stated commission of this binding by U.S. publisher G. P. Putnam's Sons is an intriguing mystery. On George Palmer Putnam's death in 1872, the business was inherited by his sons and the firm's name was changed to G. P. Putnam's Sons. It has been an imprint of The Penguin Group since 1996.The near fine contents are well-suited to the binding, clean and bright with no spotting, soiling, or previous ownership marks. Age-toning is mild, evident only to the otherwise clean untrimmed fore and bottom edges. Following the text, the original advertisements from the serialization are bound in at the rear, between the original blue covers for Issue No. II of January 1856. The book is housed in a quarter brown Morocco goatskin Solander with red Morocco spine label, red buckram sides, and felt-lined interior. Condition of the Solander is very good.English writer and social critic Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812-1870) is widely regarded the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. Little Dorrit was published at the height of Dickens celebrity, just before he began performing public readings of his works to an adoring public, and shows the author s confidence in the public appetite for his social criticism. Little Dorrit is "the saddest of all his novels and also, according to Shaw, 'a more seditious book than Das Kapital' (Shaw on Dickens, 51), bringing together scathing criticism of the country's governing institutions (here represented by the all-powerful and all-pervading 'Circumlocution Office'), a vivid portrayal in the story of Mrs Clennam of the harshly Calvinistic version of Christianity that was so strong in Victorian culture, and a depiction of the public greed and gullibility that produces the frenzy of speculation associated with the activity of the swindling financier Mr. Merdle, together with Dickens's deeper personal preoccupations about his childhood sufferings and his father's shaming imprisonment in the Marshalsea." Dickens, "Fresh from lambasting the judicial system in Bleak House, here went after the machinery of government through his portrayal of the "Circumlocution Office", staffed entirely by a dynasty of Barnacles positively thriving on the business of chaos. As in A Christmas Carol, poverty and the social structures in place to keep the downtrodden low are again his true target." References: Smith II, 12; ODNB; Independent First edition bound from the original monthly