DICKENS, Charles.

Little Dorrit.

London: Bradbury and Evans , 1857.

$975.00

In Stock Item Number: RRB-149676

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“One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it’s left behind": First Edition, first issue of Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit

First edition, first issue in book form of one of Dickens’ most outstanding novels with the three line errata on page xiv, "William" for "Frederick" on page 317 line 27, B2 instead of BB2 on pp. 371, lacking errata on page 467, and "Rigaud" for "Blandois" on pp. 469, 470, 472, and 473. Octavo, bound in three-quarters morocco over marbled boards with gilt titles to the spine in six compartments within gilt bands, all edges speckled red. With 40 illustrations by Hablot Knight Brown (“Phiz”), including frontispiece and vignette title page. In very good condition.

“In Little Dorrit Dickens mounts his single most ferocious onslaught against England and English society; against its government, against its financiers, against its artists and even against its ordinary citizens who, at least in Bleeding Heart Yard, believed that …foreigners were always immoral… that foreigners had no independent spirit…” (Ackroyd, 758). Perhaps unsurprisingly, many reviewers reviled the book upon its publication. Dickens’ friend Hans Christian Andersen advised the author to ignore the critics: “They are forgotten in a week, and your book stands and lives” (Ackroyd, 780). And indeed, Little Dorrit does: not only a commercial success in its day (poor press notwithstanding) but also esteemed now as a “wonderfully rich novel— rich in ideas, rich in characterization, rich in incident, and written in a richly imaginative prose… Many [modern] critics regard it as Dickens’ masterpiece” (Watts, 108).