viii, 526 pp. Half-title present. Illustrated with 40 etched plates by George Cruikshank, including frontispiece and additional illustrated title. (8vo), full tan polished calf, spine gilt, black leather spine label, all edges marbled. "New Edition, Complete", first combined edition.
Dickens' earliest published works, first appearing in periodicals from 1833 to 1836. Originally published in two series, the first, in 1836, in two volumes, the second in one volume in 1838. Walter E. Smith, Charles Dickens in the Original Cloth, Part I, p.16, describes the present edition: "When Chapman and Hall obtained the copyright of Sketches in 1837, they published all of them in twenty monthly parts from November 1837 through June 1839. Cruikshank designed a cover, enlarged the plates (except `The Free and Easy' which was discarded), and created 13 new illustrations for these monthly parts. In May, 1839, Chapman and Hall published these parts complete in one volume with all 40 of Cruikshank's illustrations."