Charles Dickens's Our Mutual Friend

Clarendon Edition

    

 

  

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Cheap Edition

Our Mutual Friend. Cheap Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1868. vi + 514 pp.

The Cheap Edition, printed in double columns, was conceived as a means of introducing Dickens's novels into the homes of the less well-to-do, thus reaching a new market without interfering with the continuing sales of the novels in their more expensive illustrated form. The frontispiece for this edition was designed by A. Boyd Houghton, and engraved on wood by the Dalziel brothers. The cloth cover (front and back) features a circular stamp, with the wording 'The Works of Charles Dickens Cheap editions'.

Our Mutual Friend was released in the third series of this edition, and is extremely rare: because the first edition was printed in such large quantities, only a limited number were required in the Cheap Edition. Indeed James Cook, who compiled a Bibliography of the Writings of Charles Dickens in 1879, was unable to examine a copy.

Digitised images of the complete Cheap Edition

Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

Book 4

 

 

These images appear courtesy of the Charles Dickens Museum

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Cover of the Cheap edition

 

 
       

This project gratefully acknowledges the support of the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the British Academy.
© Leon Litvack 2006