Hey, Rare Book Guy! What Happened To Dickens & Thackeray In Parts After Publication?

by Stephen J. Gertz

 

Hey, Rare Book Guy:

You know how Dickens and Thackeray were originally published in installments? What happened after that - are surviving copies usually bound together into a complete book? Is it possible to buy a single installment sometimes (maybe even with the original wrapper?). I have tried a few search engines but couldn't get an answer - thanks!

David

Dear David:

It's Friday the 13th. This is your lucky day. 

I know about Dickens and Thackeray novels published in their original parts and first editions in book form. Correctly collating a complete set, checking if all advertisements (including slips) and first state engraving points are present, and checking all text points with a first book edition requires care. If you get things wrong you either leave money on the table or an unhappy client leaves you. A bookseller can always blame their cataloger. Booksellers who catalog on their own do not, alas, have this excuse to proffer; the client thinks they're an idiot and credibility goes out the window. We're supposed to know what we're talking about.

Simultaneous with issuing the last parts of each novel, Dickens' and Thackeray's publishers routinely removed the ads that appeared at the beginning and at the end of each part, removed the illustrated  plates found together after the ads and before the text, replaced them at intervals within the text, then bound-up the remaining, continuously paginated parts and published them in cloth-bound book editions. Collectors seek the book editions with stab-stitch holes deep in the gutter margin - evidence that the book is composed of the original parts, which were stab-stitch bound; stab-holes are absent in later printings of the book editions. Once that is established, then you have to check for the earliest issue points.  David Copperfield, for instance, has twenty text points to consider as well as points for each of the forty engravings that originally appeared in the serialization - etched twice for a total of eighty. You want to know what distinguishes each from its duplicate.

If you're looking to buy individual parts to complete a set it can be done but they are very difficult to come by and expensive. Depending upon the Dickens or Thackeray title you might have to pay upwards of $1,000+ if you can find one; you may have to wait. And wait. And wait. Individual installments to the first American edition of David Copperfield in parts (New York: John Wiley/G.P.Putnam, 1849-1850), however, are currently available online at $150 each. With twenty parts in nineteen volumes the price for a complete set would be $2,850. Compare that to a set of first U.K. edition Copperfield in parts in fine condition without repair currently online at $17,500. Even a set lacking a few advertisements and with repairs and foxing is being offered at $5,500.

I don't have quite as much experience with Thackeray in the original parts as I do with Dickens but his publisher followed the same plan.

If you're serious about collecting Dickens or Thackeray in original parts or first editions in book form I strongly suggest that you get a hold of the appropriate bibliographies so you are armed and prepared on the points to look for. For Dickens in the original parts that's Hatton and Cleaver's Bibliography of the Periodical Works of Charles Dickens. For the books, it's Walter E. Smith's Charles Dickens in the Original Cloth, which supercedes John C. Eckles' The First Editions of Charles Dickens. For Thackeray, it's Shepherd's bibliography.

A word about provenance. The most desirable sets of original parts are those that came from a single original owner with signatures to each part or proof of provenance. The majority of sets, however, do not have this identification (or not all parts signed) and many are likely composed of parts brought together from various sources to form a complete set. This is not a crime. The parts were never meant to last and booksellers and collectors who built complete sets in the past were doing collectors in the present a favor. Without positive markings to indicate otherwise there is little way to distinguish an original complete set with one put together at a later date, beyond obvious variances in color or condition of the wrappers, whether by seller or collector. It's not an issue to sweat; the parts were read to bits by the original owner and friends they passed the parts along to, and we're lucky that any have survived.

It was not unusual for booksellers to insert individual advertisements (in the form of variously colored slips) from parts beyond redemption and sale into a same, otherwise salable part lacking them. Performed correctly there is no way to tell if this has been done without tearing the installment apart and, using forensic science, determining if the glue used is period or modern. This matters only if you're an obsessive purist on the verge of a nervous breakdown with a lot of money in search of a perfect, untouched set, otherwise refer to last paragraph, final sentence.

Concerning condition, the flimsy wrappers to the original parts are commonly found with some sort of restoration, usually along the easily damaged spine and/or at the corners. If the job is done well it's very difficult for the untrained eye to discern the repair. Reputable booksellers will declare the extent of restoration. If you have concerns, you can view the parts under a black light and most repairs will be evident.

It can be very frustrating to collectors with an interest in Dickens and/or Thackeray to get into first editions in parts or cloth; they are expensive. To those aspiring collectors I suggest that you collect Dickens or Thackeray in their first American editions. It's an area of collection just beginning to emerge now that Walter E. Smith has published his bibliography of Dickens' American editions (2012) and bibliographical sense has been made of the heretofore chaotic subject. First American editions are available and reasonably priced.

To find original parts or book editions the best online resources are ViaLibri and AddAll, rare book search sites that aggregate results from all others worldwide; one-stop shopping.

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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.
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All Points Bulletin: "Pure" Pickwick Papers

by Stephen J. Gertz

Attention! Calling all cars: Be on the lookout for Mr. Pickwick, a person of interest in the posthumous case of his posthumous papers, originally published as a 20-part serial, then immediately in book form bound from unsold parts yet impossible to find in that format with all first issue text and all first state plate points.

Officers are urged to use caution in the pursuit of this missing book, which contains more points than a bed of nails, and can seriously wound the unwary dealer or collector who is not careful. Dickens bibliographers Haskell and Cleaver, er, Hatton and Cleaver note forty-eight first issue text points, eighty first and second issue plate points; a total of 128 points to pay close attention to. As with all collectible books, points are money, the more first issue points, the more valuable the book. Correctly collating this book is a tedious yet crucial process for dealer and collector.

No surviving copies of Pickwick... in book form have been found with all first issue text points present; there are no "pure" copies. The renowned William Self copy lacks the half-title, possesses only four Hatton and Cleaver first issue points, and has plates that are not all first state. The publisher's original cloth binding is scarcely found in fine condition; typically, the gilt has faded from a distressed spine at the head and tail.

Recently, while walking my beat, I stopped and held for questioning what appeared to be the finest copy extant of Charles Dickens' The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club in book form. A thorough frisking revealed twenty-one of Hatton and Cleaver's forty-eight first issue text points, all plates in their first state, in as fine as can be, near untouched original binding. Eureka!

To possess just shy of fifty percent of Hatton and Cleaver's first issue text points  was quite remarkable. Even more remarkable, however, is that Walter E. Smith, in Charles Dickens in the Original Cloth, which supersedes Hatton and Cleaver, notes seven unequivocal first issue points for the book and this copy possessed six of them:

Page 260, line 29, "hodling" for "holding."
Page 276: Figure "7" in page number slightly above other figures.
Page 341, line 1: Correct reading of "inde-licate;" line 5 correct reading of "inscription;" with stab holes.
Page 342, line 5: "S. Veller" uncorrected.
Page 400, line 21: "this friends" for "his friends."
Page 432, headline: "F" in "OF" imperfect.

(The seventh first issue point occurs on page 25: signature "E" missing from foot of page).

It also contained the two "suppressed" plates by Robert William Buss from Part Three, The Cricket Match (Ch. 7, opposite p. 69), and The Arbor Scene (Ch. 8, opposite p. 74), "neither of which gave Dickens satisfaction" (Hatton & Cleaver, p. 20), in their first state.  "Buss, hastily hired to replace Seymour as an illustrator for The Pickwick Papers, was just as hastily dismissed" (Cohen, Charles Dickens and his Original Illustrators, p. 51). The Buss plates ceased to appear after November 1836. 

The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club was Dickens’s first novel, a publishing phenomenon which transformed the obscure journalist into England’s most famous author in a matter of months. The serial was originally intended to be primarily a vehicle for the cartoons of Robert Seymour, until he committed suicide after the first number was published. Robert William Buss then took over, but he was inexperienced in steel engraving and was fired. Hablot Knight Browne (“Phiz”), who was to become Dickens’s chosen collaborator for the next two decades, stepped in. Phiz illustrated Parts IV-XX, re-engraved the Seymour plates, and entirely replaced the Buss plates for later issues.

The first edition in book format was made up from the original parts, with wrappers and advertisements discarded. That is to say, it was put together with whatever parts the publisher still had on hand. By that time, most if not all of the parts in first issue had been sold, and Chapman and Hall mixed and matched with later issues. As this was Dickens' first novel the original print runs for the first issue could not have been large; this is the likely reason why it is impossible to find copies of the book with all first issue points. None  existed in the first place and all copies of the book are a mash-up of leftover parts, whatever issue. Though Smith assigns no priority to many points in Hatton and Cleaver, the market reality is that many collectors relish a copy's place on the points scorecard. You can never reach perfection but you can try to get as close to it as possible. It's a very human ambition.

If you find a copy of Pickwick (or most Dickens novels) with plates clean as a whistle, beware. They are routinely seen oxidized, moderately to heavily, with dark toning, broad or narrow, at the margins. If found so, there's an excellent chance that they have been washed by a restorer. Stick your nose down to the plate and take a whiff. Washed paper has a distinct chemical odor, however subtle.

“The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club originally appeared in twenty numbers, bound in nineteen monthly parts, the last part forming a double number, from April 1836-November 1837, except for a lapse of one month—June 1837—when Part 15 was deferred. It was published in book form on November 17, 1837” (Smith).

Officers in the field who encounter a copy of Pickwick... in book form containing all first issue points  and first state plates are advised to contact their duty sergeant immediately and alert the media. The suspect is suspect but if proven innocent is the successful result of the one of the most intense bookhunts in literary history that authorities gave up on long ago.

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DICKENS, Charles. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. With Forty-Three Illustrations, by R. Seymour and Phiz. London: Chapman and Hall, 1837.

First edition, primarily first issue, in book form, with 21 of 48 of Hatton and Cleaver's first issue text points present, and all first state plates, of Dickens’s first novel, bound from the original monthly parts, with stab-holes present in the inner margins of gatherings. Octavo (8 3/4 x 5 1/2 inches; 221 x 140 mm.). xiv, [1, directions to the binder], [1, errata], 609, [1, blank] pp. Complete with half-title and forty-three first state engraved plates by Seymour, Buss, and “Phiz” (including frontispiece and vignette title), with the Seymour plates from the first steels and the “Phiz” plates from early steels, all without titles or imprints.

Original purplish-black fine diaper grain cloth, without any fading or sunning whatsoever. Covers paneled in blind and spines ruled and paneled in blind and lettered in gilt. Original pale yellow coated endpapers. Minimal rubbing to corners and the bare minimum of fading to spine, but there is absolutely - and amazingly - no wear to spine extremities and the gilt on the spine is bright. Rear endpapers slightly oxidized. Plates oxidized, as usual, chiefly at the edges, the frontispiece and engraved vignette title heavier than the others.  The front inner hinge has been near invisibly and miraculously restored.

Eckel, p. 17. Gimbel A16. Hatton and Cleaver, pp. 1-88. Johannsen, pp. 1-75. Smith, Dickens, I, 3.

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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.

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