Dombey and Son. by DICKENS, Charles - 1848: With illustrations by H. K. Browne.

London: Bradbury and Evans,, 1848. Original cloth First edition in book form, following publication in serial form from September 1846 to March 1848, of the novel "now recognized as one of the greatest of all his works... It is also the first one to have an explicitly contemporary setting" (ODNB).
The cloth is a secondary binding - for all the Dickens titles the publishers retained first edition sheets and bound them up over the years as demand required. In this instance, the design of the cloth matches that of the primary cloth of Bleak House, published in 1853, determining it was bound then or thereafter, either to match the design of Dickens's more recent novels, or else simply reflecting that designs had changed. At any rate, Dombey in this secondary binding is much scarcer than in the primary binding, which itself is by no means common. Demy octavo. Original green cloth (secondary), spine lettered in gilt, spine and covers with elaborate design in blind, cream endpapers. With 40 plates by Phiz; plate 35 being the first published example of a "dark plate". Book label (John K. Bindloss, Annesdale, Eccles) and bookseller's embossed stamp (Hale & Roworth, Manchester), to front free endpaper. Spine recoloured, hinges just starting, some light browning and offsetting to plates. A very good copy. Smith I, 8. Lars Kremers, "A Comparative Bibliography of the Sheets and Publishers' Cloth Cases of the Demy Octavo Works of Charles Dickens, 1837-1872", 2013, pp. 210-211.