ONE OF THE GREAT VICTORIAN NOVELS DICKENS, Charles.

Great expectations ... In three volumes. Vol. I [-III]. Second edition.

First edition, second impression, of one of the great Victorian novels, which was already in short supply in 1861. After Great Expectations had attracted a large readership in All the Year Round, Chapman and Hall were understandably cautious in their initial order for the novel as a traditional three-decker at 31s 6d, a format that had not been tried for Dickens before. Their accounts (in the Forster collection at the V&A) show ‘five successive payments to Whiting, the printer, for 1000, 750, 750, 500, and 750 copies’, the later impressions from standing type or stereotype plates (to judge from the reduced costs). This caution seems excessive as Mudie, the circulating library, took 1400 copies (Clarendon Press edition, pp. xliv-xlv).