DICKENS, CHARLES. The Works. 40 volumes. 915 engraved illustrations throughout and with two dickens autograph items at the front of first volume: an inlaid check accomplished and Signed by Dickens and a tipped-in letter. 8vo, contemporary reddish-brown crushed 3/4 morocco gilt, joints and tips rubbed with occasional cracking, backstrips browned and rubbed, other light wear; top edges gilt, others untrimmed; facsimile wrappers of original parts bound in as issued. London: Chapman and Hall, 1906-08
one of 750 sets of the national edition Signed on behalf of the publisher by Alfred Tennyson Dickens, the author's sixth child. The check is dated 1866, made out to "Miss Dickens and Wages" in the amount of 11£, 5s, signed by Dickens with his flourish. The letter, written in the third person, from "Mr. Charles Dickens" to a Miss Carden, denying her permission to use certain written materials. 1 page, 8vo; 7 August 1850, from Devonshire Terrace. The set is also of interest because it contains "newly collected articles, letters, speeches, plays, and poems"--Podeschi D-158.
