MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK

London: Chapman and Hall, 1840-41. FIRST EDITION IN BOOK FORM. 257 x 171 mm. (10 1/8 x 7 3/4"). Three volumes..
VERY PRETTY CORAL RED MOROCCO, EXUBERANTLY GILT, LIKELY BY ALVAH COOK, covers tooled in a 17th century style with repeating compartments formed by drawer-handle tools, filled with flowers and stippling, raised bands, spines delicately tooled with central fleuron, leafy cornerpieces, gilt lettering, turn-ins with floral gilt roll, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. With frontisipiece in each volume and wood engravings throughout by George Cattermole and Hablot K. Browne. Eckel, pp. 67-70; Podeschi A51. ◆One leaf with upper corner restored (perhaps before printing), some margins faintly browned (because of paper quality), here and there a fox spot, other trivial internal imperfections, spines just slightly and evenly sunned, but AN ESPECIALLY PLEASING SET, internally with virtually no signs of use, and the lovely bindings unworn.

First issued as a weekly periodical between April 1840 and December 1841, "Master Humphrey's Clock" contains several short stories and two of Dickens' novels, "The Old Curiosity Shop" and "Barnaby Rudge." An elderly and rather lonely Londoner, Master Humphrey decides to start a club for a handful of writing friends. These writers, among them Mr. Pickwick (of the eponymous "Papers"), would deposit their manuscripts in the case of Master Humphrey's grandfather clock, and Humphrey would read them aloud during meetings of the club. This sets the frame for relating "The Old Curiosity Shop," followed by "Barnaby Rudge." Dickens tired of using this device to present his novels, and ended "Master Humphrey's Clock" with the title character's death. In his "Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens," G. K. Chesterton regretted the fact that this is the only Dickens books in which characters from earlier stories appear, and declared that the stories of Master's Humphrey's writing club "show us better than anything else the whole unconscious trend of Dickens, the stuff of which his very dreams were made. If he had made up tales to amuse himself when half-awake (as I have no doubt he did) they would be just such tales as these." The most attractive bindings, employing tools and designs popular in the 17th century, are very possibly the work of Alvah Cook. The Bath Record Office holds 100 bindings by Cook, whom they identify on their website as "a lawyer by trade and amateur art bookbinder." Pictures of bindings from this collection clearly show that Cook was extraordinarily adept at replicating a variety of styles, including the complex 16th century French strapwork and even more challenging and intricate English Restoration work. Although his hometown has a cache of his bindings, examples--at least with an identifying stamp--seem to be rare in the marketplace. We could trace just one binding signed by him in RBH, a copy of Dickens' "Oliver Twist" beautifully covered in red morocco in the French 18th century style. Whoever did our "Humphrey's" bindings, it makes an extremely attractive impression on the shelf..