DICKENS, CHARLES. The Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. 2 volumes. Illustrated by H. K....

DICKENS, CHARLES. The Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. 2 volumes. Illustrated by H. K. Browne ("Phiz") with additional material inserted. Large 8vo, brown pebble grain morocco with gilt fillet and floral borders and spines, by MacDonald and Sons, band chipped at head of Volume 2, top edges trimmed and gilt; bookplates of Cornelia Otis Skinner. London: Chapman and Hall, 1839

first edition. extra-illustrated with numerous plates and a signed inscription by dickens from new york city, three days before his final reading in America. On a single 8vo leaf of his monogram stationery, in blue ink: "Faithfully yours, Charles Dickens / New York. / Wednesday Fifteenth April, 1868," inlaid to size and bound in. He had given 22 readings at Steinway Hall between December 1867 and April 18, 1868 in New York City. His final appearance was at a banquet dinner in his honor at the landmark Delmonico's on Saturday the 18th where he famously stated that he would no longer denounce America, having restored his faith during this visit after his less successful first trip twenty years earlier. This extra-illustrated edition was compiled and bound by Curtis Guild in 1880 with an additional printed title-page stating that it is "Extended by the Insertion of the Author's Autograph, a Portrait of Mr. Macready, a Complete Set of the Onwhyn plates, Illustrations by Darley, Reinhart, Eytinge and Others, Collected from Various Sources in Europe and America, by Curtis Guild / Boston, 1880." Provenance: Curtis Guild collection to Alden S. Blodget to Cornelia Otis Skinner.