DICKENS, Charles. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Cecil Aldin.

Two volumes. Chapman and Hall / Lawrence and Jellicoe, London, 1910. Imperial octavo. pp. [x] 450; [x] 457. Quarter grey cloth on tan buckram boards, lettered in brown and decorated in gilt. Limited Edition of 250 copies. Spine professionally rebacked. A very good copy.
A very handsome set of The Pickwick Papers, with 24 colour plates, printed tissue-guards, numerous text-illustrations and pictorial headpieces, decorative initials, by Cecil Aldin. The titlepages printed in red and black. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club was Dickens’s first novel, and was wildly successful: “Pickwick mania swept the country, with merchandise available to buy in addition to theatrical adaptations, unauthorised sequels, and Pickwick clubs.” The Dickens Museum. The novel has remained popular for its comedy. Nicholas Dames in The Atlantic writes, “Literature’ is not a big enough category for Pickwick. It defined its own, a new one that we have learned to call ‘entertainment”.

[Cat 163]