The Posthumous Papers of The Pickwick Club. by DICKENS, Charles - 1837: With forty-three illustrations, by R. Seymour and Phiz.

London: Chapman and Hall, 1837. With Frederick Pailthorpe's additional illustrations, bound by Bayntun-Riviere First edition, bound from the original monthly parts, in a very handsome binding by the leading British bookbinders Bayntun-Riviere, and delightfully extra-illustrated with the full suite of Frederick Pailthorpe's 24 additional illustrations which were issued in 1882, retaining the front wrapper of that publication with the publisher's presentation note to verso.
The volume consequently presents a very desirable copy of Dickens's first great success, the novel that transformed him from an obscure journalist into England's most famous writer in a matter of months. Originally issued in monthly parts (from which this copy is bound, distinguished by the stab-holes in gutter), the novel initially met with mediocre sales, but with the introduction of the character Sam Weller the publication became a sensation. An authorized and unauthorized Pickwick industry grew up alongside the book, with theatrical performances, spin-off books, and branded trinkets. These commercial ventures also included rival illustrators who produced further plates, which owners of the parts could then have bound into their copies.
These extra-illustration schemes continued intermittently for decades. In 1882, Frederick Pailthorpe - an illustrator for later editions of Dickens, and who re-engraved George Cruikshank's illustrations for new publications - published his suite of 24 illustrations. This copy has the Pailthorpe illustrations, including the original front wrapper and title page of the publication ("24 Illustrations to the 'Pickwick Club'", London: Robson and Kerslake, 1882). Pailthorpe was a friend of Cruikshank, and the latter's influence can clearly be seen in Pailthorpe's artistry. Naturally any copy with the Pailthorpe illustrations would have had to have been bound long after the first publication of the novel, most likely as a rebinding of an earlier part-bound copy, rather than gathering up copies of the parts.
"Issue points" are often cited for the first edition of the Pickwick Papers, mostly a pointless exercise even for book-form copies, but doubly so for copies bound from the original 19 monthly parts, as each part had its own complicated publication history and for 19 parts together there will inevitably be a mass of variations between copies. Even if by extraordinary coincidence a complete set of 19 first-issue parts were bound together, the discarding of the wrappers upon binding would make such a copy indistinguishable. That said, it is a moderate bonus that this copy has the earlier states of the plates prior to them being re-engraved with Chapman and Hall's imprint, and also has the Buss plates, which were subsequently re-engraved by Phiz while the parts were still in print (no copy in the later book-form issue has them). The most enduring cited "point" is the variant of "Weller" and "Veller" on the engraved title, an irrelevance as both plates were in use simultaneously, here reading "Weller". Octavo (208 x 130 mm). Mid-20th-century blue morocco by Bayntun-Riviere, spine lettered in gilt, gilt in compartments, gilt roundel centrepiece portrait of Dickens to front cover, gilt facsimile signature to rear, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, gilt edges. Etched title page, frontispiece, and 41 plates by Robert Buss, Robert Seymour and H. K. Browne (Phiz); extra-illustrated (see note) with 24 plates by Frederick Pailthorpe. Complete with half-title. Light sunning to spine, minor browning to some plates as usual, repair to lower corner of plate facing p. 484 and to top right corner of pp. xi/xii. A near-fine copy.