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First edition, in an extremely attractive Cosway-style binding featuring an oval miniature portrait of Dickens aged 27 after the painting by Daniel Maclise. All plates are present and in their early states with page numbers as called for, but with no titles or imprints. Two plates by R. W. Buss were suppressed and the replacement illustrations by H. K. Browne ("Phiz") are present in this copy. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens's first novel, transformed the obscure journalist into England's most famous writer within months. The first monthly instalment was issued in an edition of 1,000 copies in April 1836. The work became a publishing sensation after the introduction of Sam Weller in chapter 10, the fourth instalment, issued in July 1836, after which the publishers reprinted the earlier instalments so that readers could catch up. By the time the book publication was issued in November 1837, many textual corrections had been made. Booksellers often list numerous (and confusing) text points that might conceivably apply to a perfect set of Pickwick Papers as originally issued in parts, but all these points could never be found together in the issues in book form. The serial was originally intended to be primarily a vehicle for the cartoons of Robert Seymour, until he died by suicide after the first number was published. Robert William Buss then took over, but he was inexperienced in steel engraving and had to be replaced. The final choice, Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"), was to be Dickens's chosen collaborator for the next two decades. Smith I.3. Octavo (210 x 122 mm). Early 20th-century green full morocco by Sangorski & Sutcliffe for Charles J. Sawyer, spine elaborately gilt in six compartments, covers with gilt borders, front cover with circular red morocco onlay with Dickens's monogram in gilt, gauffered edges gilt, red morocco doublures with elaborate gilt dentelles, front doublure in Cosway-style with central oval miniature portrait of Dickens after Maclise, under glass and framed in brass, watered silk endpapers, gilt-stamped facsimile of Dickens's signature to front free endpaper. Housed in a custom green cloth folding box. Etched vignette title page, frontispiece, 41 plates by Robert Seymour and H. K. Browne. A remarkably clean and fine example with some light foxing to frontispiece and etched vignette title page, as usual, some cockling to paper lining of free endpapers, and bound without half-title.