Dickens' “Oliver Twist” First Edition, Illustrated By Cruikshank, 3 Vol., 1838.

DICKENS, Charles, [CRUIKSHANK, George, illustrator.] The Adventures of Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress. London: Richard Bentley, 1838.

FIRST EDITION, SECOND ISSUE. Three volumes, complete. Small octavo. Contemporary half leather over marbled boards. Spine labels lettered “Oliver Twist” and “Modern Novelist.” Illustrated with etched plates by George Cruikshank.

An authentic example of Oliver Twist as first issued in book form following its serialization. An early state, mixed set, retaining early sheets. Authorship on title page newly stated as “Charles Dickens” rather than his previous pseudonym “Boz.” The earliest textual state reading “pilaster” on page 164, Volume III. An overall well-preserved and handsome set of this 1838 first edition literary masterpiece.

Contents clean and sound, no inscriptions; scattered foxing to plates and preliminaries, as usual; occasional marginal wear; one plate page with small chips not affecting the image. Frontispiece to Volume I not present. Bindings firm. Boards worn at centers with expected rubbing to leather.

Oliver Twist was the foundational work of Dickens’s early career, establishing the social and moral framework that would define his mature fiction, sharp criticism of institutional poverty set  alongside enduring characters. The immediate popularity of Oliver Twist secured Dickens’s position within Victorian literary culture. First published in serial form in Bentley’s Miscellany, the novel marked Dickens’s transition from episodic sketch writer to major novelist. The present set reflects that pivotal moment of transformation, preserving the text in its earliest book-form incarnation.