First edition in book form, with most of the textual points corrected and the two 'Buss' plates replaced with plates by 'Phiz', consistent with book issues not bound from the parts. 8vo. In a fine, contemporary, presentation binding, very probably by Hayday, of purple crushed morocco, the spine lettered and decorated in gilt in a cathedral style, the covers with an intricately tooled Greek urn and ruled in gilt and black. Marbled endpapers and page edges. Marbled endpapers. Engraved title page and 42 full page steel engravings by Seymour and Phiz. A very good copy indeed, the binding well preserved with only a little wear to the corners and joints. Internally the text is a little foxed in places, with somewhat more pronounced browning to the plates.

Dickens' first novel in an elaborate presentation binding. Hayday was Chapman & Hall's binder of choice for binding special presentation copies of Dickens' works. This binding, though not signed, is consistent in style, material and decoration with contemporaneous deluxe presentation bindings Hayday executed. The same vignette of the Greek urn can be seen on presentation bindings by him in the 1830s and 1840s, while the decoration to the spine is unmistakably similar to the "extra-super" presentation bindings commissioned by Chapman and Hall for The Pickwick Papers (given to Dr Elliotson by Dickens) and Nicholas Nickleby (presented to Lady Holland).
Whilst the publishers advertised copies of the large octavo books for sale in full morocco bindings (probably the more commonly encountered binding in green morocco), it would appear that they also commissioned Hayday to produce special one-off bindings for author or publisher presentation.
John Forster refers to receiving one such copy, "in the most luxurious of Hayday's bindings, with a note worth preserving... "Chapman and Hall have just sent me, with a copy of our deed, three "extra-super" bound copies of Pickwick, as per the specimen enclosed."" - Forster (The Life of Charles Dickens)

PROVENANCE: Bookplate of the East baronetcy to front pastedown; later ownership inscription of M. L. Gheyson to frontispiece recto.

Stock ID: 40284