First Edition, Two Volumes, with Dickens’s Personal Bookplate and 1870 Gadshill Library Dispersal Label**
 
A superb association set from the personal library of Charles Dickens, bearing both his engraved lion‑and‑cross bookplate and the original June 1870 Gadshill Place dispersal label—the very tag used when Dickens’s belongings were sold shortly after his death. First edition. Edinburgh: Edmonston & Douglas, 1862. Two volumes, 8vo., original blue cloth with gilt portrait bust and titling, 734 pp. total. Housed in a custom slipcase with matching chemise.
 
A Genuine Dickens Library Book — With Both Provenance Markers Present
Each volume’s front pastedown carries:
Dickens’s personal bookplate: the gold lion couchant holding a Maltese cross, adopted from the dormant 1625 coat of arms claimed by his father, John Dickens. Though Dickens mocked social pretension in his fiction, he embraced this heraldic device in his own life—using it on bookplates, letterhead, and household items.
The 1870 Gadshill Place sales label: “From the Library of Charles Dickens, Gadshill Place, June, 1870.” This label was created specifically for the posthumous auction of Dickens’s personal effects and is one of the most authoritative indicators of authentic Dickens provenance.
 
Bibliographic & Historical Notes - Dickens’s lion‑and‑cross emblem evolved over time as various engravers interpreted it differently. In 1840, Dickens clarified the design in a letter to cabinetmaker John Overs, specifying that the lion should hold a Maltese cross, not a cross patonce, and even supplied a sketch. The bookplate seen here reflects that corrected form—one of the key identifiers used by bibliographers to authenticate volumes from his library.
 
Provenance -This exact copy appears in:
Sotheran’s Price Current of Literature, vols. CLXXIV (30 Nov. 1878) & CLXXV (31 Dec. 1878)
J. H. Stonehouse, Catalogue of the Library of Charles Dickens from Gadshill Place (1935) — Ref. S118.6c
With Bibliographic Details from the catalogue -
Author: Mary Wilson Gordon
Title: Christopher North; A Memoir of Prof. John Wilson; from Family Papers, etc.
Publisher: Edmonston & Douglas, Edinburgh
Date: 1862
Format: Post 8vo, blue cloth, gilt‑stamped, first edition, two volumes
Illustrations: Portraits and “Hogarthian Sketches” by J. G. Lockhart and others
Original Price: 8 shillings
From Charles Dickens Jr.’s Catalogue — Ref. C016.03, location RR2
 
Condition - Good plus. Cloth shows edgewear; spines darkened; hinges cracked; scattered small stains. No dust jackets, as issued. A handsome set in a custom slipcase, with the two critical provenance markers cleanly affixed and well‑preserved.
 
Why This Set Matters
Books from Dickens’s personal library are scarce; books retaining both the engraved bookplate and the 1870 dispersal label are significantly rarer still. This is a quintessential example—documented, bibliographically traceable, and carrying the unmistakable physical evidence of Dickens’s ownership.