Dombey and Son.

London: Bradbury and Evans,, 1848. If man would help some of us a little more, God would forgive us all the sooner perhaps First edition in book form, following publication in serial form from September 1846 to March 1848. Dombey and Son was the first of Dickens's novels to have an explicitly contemporary setting, and is "now recognized as one of the greatest of all his works" (ODNB). It is also noted for containing the first published example of "a so-called dark plate, which was created by a machine process that tinted the etched plate and heightened its black-and-white contrast". The dark plate in Dombey and Son is "On the Dark Road", p. 547, where "the smooth blending of light and shadow... vividly contrasts it with the other illustrations in the novel and is a fine example of the dark plate process" (Smith). The technique was later put to use for ten plates in Bleak House and eight in Little Dorrit. Octavo (214 x 142 mm). Etched vignette, frontispiece, and 38 plates by Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz). Finely bound in full blue morocco, titles and compartments richly gilt on spine, raised bands tooled in gilt, single rules to covers, portrait vignette to front, signature to rear, all gilt, turn-ins and edges gilt, marbled endpapers. Spine very slightly sunned with a touch of rubbing to head, light scattered foxing. A near-fine copy, handsomely bound. Smith I, 8; Lars Kremers, A Comparative Bibliography of the Sheets and Publishers' Cloth Cases of the Demy Octavo Works of Charles Dickens, 2013, p. 93-97.