# Is "Dombey and Son" by Charles Dickens a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens (Bradbury and Evans, London, 1848) is identified by: 'Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation.' London: Bradbury and Evans, 1848. Bradbury and Evans, London is right, but the census's arithmetic needs correcting.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- 'Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation.' London: Bradbury and Evans, 1848
- Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ('Phiz'): frontispiece, vignette title and 38 plates in the volume, with the preface dated March 1848
- Original green cloth, spine lettered in gilt; a primary/secondary cloth distinction is recognised, and the half-title and the errata leaf should be present
- The first-issue points corroborated across independent dealer catalogues — all ultimately deriving from Eckel
- — are: the vignette title showing Captain Cuttle's hook on his LEFT arm rather than his right; 'delight' for 'joy' on p
- 284, five lines up from the foot; 'aint' without the apostrophe on p
- Publisher imprint reads Bradbury and Evans, London

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Charles Dickens |
| Publisher | Bradbury and Evans, London |
| Year | 1848 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | 'Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation.' London: Bradbury and Evans, 1848 |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
'Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation.' London: Bradbury and Evans, 1848. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ('Phiz'): frontispiece, vignette title and 38 plates in the volume, with the preface dated March 1848. Original green cloth, spine lettered in gilt; a primary/secondary cloth distinction is recognised, and the half-title and the errata leaf should be present. The first-issue points corroborated across independent dealer catalogues — all ultimately deriving from Eckel (1913) — are: the vignette title showing Captain Cuttle's hook on his LEFT arm rather than his right; 'delight' for 'joy' on p. 284, five lines up from the foot; 'aint' without the apostrophe on p. 14, ten lines up; and 'Capatin' for 'Captain' as the last word on p. 324. Further points are cited but do not agree across sources and should not be leaned on: 'fidgetty' for 'fidgety' is placed at p. 26 line 11 by one dealer and p. 40 line 11 by another, so the reading is a point but the page is unsettled; 'It' for 'If' at p. 426 line 9 is also cited. Plate 35, 'On the Dark Road' facing p. 547, is the first published example of a 'dark plate' (Browne's lining-machine and roulette tint) and the volume carries the first use of horizontal plates; the three etchings facing pp. 325, 352 and 439 have no priority over the lithographs. References: Eckel pp. 71-76; Smith 8; Sadleir I: 687; Grolier Dickens 155; Podeschi/Gimbel A103.

## Is this the true first?
Bradbury and Evans, London is right, but the census's arithmetic needs correcting. The serial precedes the book and is the true first appearance: twenty numbers issued in nineteen monthly parts, October 1846 to April 1848 — the final instalment of April 1848 is the double number XIX/XX — in the original printed pictorial wrappers with the Dombey & Son Advertiser. Hatton and Cleaver is the authority for the advertisements and inserted slips a complete set must carry. Points recorded in the parts include the twelve-line errata slip in Part V, the 'delight' for 'joy' reading at p. 284 in Part IX, 'Capatin' at p. 324 in Part XI, the earliest advertiser state dated 'October, 1847' in Part XIII, 'if' omitted at p. 426 in Part XIV, and in Part XIX/XX the Captain Cuttle hook error on the vignette title together with the two-line errata. The 1848 book issue is made from the same sheets and is the collected form; a volume 'bound from the parts' — stab holes visible in the gutter margins — is a third thing again and should be described as such rather than as either. No UK/US or foreign-language precedence question arises; the American editions follow the London parts.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book club edition for an 1848 Dickens. The reprint field is where the difficulty sits: Bradbury and Evans reprinted from the same setting, and the Chapman & Hall Cheap, Library and Charles Dickens editions followed, so an 1848 date on the title page is necessary and not sufficient — the vignette-title hook and the p. 284 and p. 324 readings are what separate the first issue. Sets of the parts are routinely made up, with wrappers and advertisements supplied from other copies or facsimiled; Hatton and Cleaver's collation of the ads and slips is the check, and 'all the ads called for by Hatton & Cleaver' is the phrase a described set should be able to support. Volumes bound from the parts and later 19th-century leather rebinds are commonly catalogued flatly as 'first edition 1848', which is true of the sheets and silent about the issue and the binding.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Dombey and Son* by Charles Dickens a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/dombey-and-son
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.