WITH NUMEROUS WOOD-ENGRAVED ILLUSTRATIONS
DICKENS, Charles; Hablot Knight BROWNE and George CATTERMOLE, illustrators.
Master Humphrey’s Clock.
London, Chapman and Hall, 1840–41.
Three vols, 8vo, pp. I: iv, [2], 306; II: vi, 306; III: vi, 426; each volume with wood-engraved frontispieces and 198 wood-engraved illustrations and initials in text by Hablot Knight Browne, aka ‘Phiz’, George Cattermole, and others; some light, variable foxing, closed tear to lower edge of vol. I p. 235, some scribbling to lower edge of vol. III p. 312, but generally very good; bound in contemporary half sheep with marbled paper sides, black morocco lettering-pieces to spines, marbled edges; extremities and corners worn, spine ends perished, spines rubbed, abrasions to sides; contemporary ownership inscription of John Nugent (?) to front pastedowns.
First edition in book form, of Charles Dickens’ weekly periodical, featuring a collection of short stories and his two novels The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge.
Master Humphrey’s Clock, edited and written entirely by Dickens, was initially published as a weekly periodical from 4 April 1840 until 4 December 1841. Sales, initially very high, quickly declined when readers realised the Clock was not a continuous story. The character of Master Humphrey, a reclusive old cripple, and his small circle of old-fashioned storytellers did not resonate with the public, and even the reintroduction of popular characters like Mr Pickwick failed to stop the decline in sales. To address the issue, Dickens swiftly expanded one of his intended ‘Personal adventures of Master Humphrey’ into the novel The Old Curiosity Shop. The other novel to be published in the periodical, Barnaby Rudge, was Dickens’s first historical novel. It is set during anti-Catholic Gordon riots of 1780 and was written in emulation of Sir Walter Scott.
Master Humphrey’s Clock was issued between 1840 and 1841 in four formats: eighty-eight weekly parts, twenty monthly parts, and a three-volume book. The publication, moreover, marked the first and only instance of two novels by Dickens being released simultaneously. The charming initials and in-text illustrations, created by Hablot K. Browne, also known as ‘Phiz’, and George Cattermole, with contributions from Samuel Williams and Daniel Maclise, were engraved on wood by Ebenezer Landells, Charles Gray, and others. Their high number, almost two hundred, made the Clock an expensive product, posing some financial challenges for the publisher.
See Eckel, pp. 67–70; Hatton and Cleaver, pp. 163–4.
