Charles Dickens – Master Humphrey’s Clock [with Barnaby Rudge] – First Edition Set 1841

A first edition, first printing, first issue set of Master Humphrey’s Clock [with Barnaby Rudge] in three volumes, by Charles Dickens, published by Chapman and Hall, London in 1841, with illustrations. A near fine set, with a former owner’s ex libris label to the front paste-downs and the names of former owner’s in ink to the free end papers, boards in debossed binding with ornate gilt horological motif to top boards, gilt titling to the spines with floral strap-work motifs, with pushing to the corners and light rubbing to extremities.

Charles Dickens’s Master Humphrey’s Clock appeared in instalments from 1840 to 1841, bringing readers The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge within a framework of stories and sketches. Barnaby Rudge, Dickens’s first historical novel, unfolds against the Gordon Riots of 1780, following Barnaby and his raven, Grip, through a London gripped by violence. The work combines suspense, social observation and characters, while its serial format reveals Dickens’s gift for holding readers week after week.