Bleak House - Charles Dickens - Folio Society - 2005

Edition
Bleak House - Charles Dickens - Folio Society - 2005

Condition
Like New.  Some minor shelf wear to bottom of slipcase

Details
Charles Dickens, Bleak House, with the original illustrations by “Phiz” [Hablot K. Browne], introduction by Peter Ackroyd. 262 × 170 × 56 mm. Pp. [i–iv] v–xix [xx–xxii], 1–874 [875–876]: [39] leaves of ‘plates’. Type: Bulmer with Verdi for display. Typeset by R. and R. Clark for the Nonesuch Press in 1938 (the preliminaries by Folio), printed by the Saint Edmundsbury Press.  Bound by Real Lachenmaier in quarter dark red morocco, dark red buckram boards, black leather spine-label; dark red endleaves. Dark red slip case. With the present volume a new edition of the complete novels of Dickens was launched. This time, rather than typeset each book and commission new illustrations, Folio chose to reproduce in facsimile the Nonesuch Press edition, designed by Francis Meynell and published in 1937 and 1938 under the editorial direction of Walter Dexter, Thomas Hatton, Hugh Walpole and Arthur Waugh. In the original Nonesuch edition, the illustrations were reprinted from the same etched plates and wood-engraved blocks used for the first, or early, editions of the novelist’s works. The edition was set in a newly designed type, ‘based upon the vivid but wholly unaffected letter design originally cut by William Martin for use by that eminent printer William Bulmer shortly before 1790’ (quote from the 1937 prospectus for the edition), which was later released by the Monotype Corporation as ‘Bulmer’. The original cursive shoulder-notes were removed from the present reprint, and the series was issued in a uniform binding, with gilt top edges and a dark red silk marker in each volume. Each was also expanded with a new introduction, typeset to harmonise with the original Nonesuch typography.