Dickens' Works “Cruikshank Limited Edition" Illustrated, 18 Volumes, 1895.

DICKENS, Charles, [CRUIKSHANK, George, illustrator]. The Cruikshank Edition of Dickens’s Works. Boston: Samuel E. Cassino, c. 1895.

CRUIKSHANK EDITION. LIMITED EDITION, one of 500 copies; these being No. 454. Eighteen (18) volumes, complete. Octavo (8vo). Original blue cloth with paper title blocks on spines, top edges gilt, other edges untrimmed. Illustrated with plates after George Cruikshank and other Victorian artists.

The 18 volume set includes Dickens’s most celebrated novels and Christmas writings, including: Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities, among others, and also all of the Christmas Books including A Christmas Carol.

Contents clean and well-preserved, with numerous unopened gatherings throughout the 18 volumes, reflecting minimal handling since publication. Contents and plates complete. Deckled fore and bottom edges; frontispieces with tissue guards present. Light shelf wear to extremities with occasional bumped corners; paper spine labels chipped in places, as expected. Moderate fraying and chipping to spine heads and tails. Top edges gilt, retaining bright condition. Overall, a well-preserved Very Good set.

Issued during the late nineteenth-century revival of Dickens collecting, this edition presents the novelist’s major works in a richly illustrated library format grounded in the visual tradition established during his lifetime with George Cruikshank, his friend and colleague. Cruikshank illustrations helped define the enduring visual identity of Dickens’s fiction for Victorian readers and later collectors alike.