Master Humphrey's Clock (The Old Curiosity Shop), Charles Dickens, Chapman and Hall, First Book Edition, 1840

Master Humphrey’s Clock began in 1840 as Dickens’s weekly miscellany of tales and sketches narrated by “Master Humphrey,” but soon became the serial vehicle for The Old Curiosity Shop (1840–41) and later Barnaby Rudge. The book edition was generally issued in three volumes; in this copy, the first two volumes are bound together, concluding The Old Curiosity Shop and introducing the next tale, Barnaby Rudge. The third and final volume is not included here.

Master Humphrey's Clock, by Charles Dickens. With illustrations by George Cattermole and Hablot Browne ("Phiz").

Published by Chapman and Hall, London, 1840-41. First book edition. 

A good hardback with leather spine and corners. The leather is scuffed and worn, with some losses to the front near the spine and at the spine extremities; corners bumped; paper-covered boards scuffed. All soundly bound, with cloth strengthening to the inner hinges.

Provenance: Bookplate of Murray of Crieff to front pastedown. Murray (“Auld Dullerie”) was part of a scholarly Scottish lineage with connections to the University of Leiden, the Jacobite rising, and military and scientific service across the 18th–19th centuries.

Some spotting to endpapers, but text is bright and clean throughout. Well illustrated with numerous in-text cuts by Cattermole and Browne.

Language: English.

iv + 306pp + vi + 228pp.

Dimensions: approximately 249mm high x 173mm wide x 34mm deep.

Unpacked weight approximately 1080g.