Letters of Charles Dickens 1880 & 1882 (three volumes). This three-volume set is titled “The Letters of Charles Dickens”, edited by his sister-in-law and his eldest daughter, the first two volumes were published in London by Chapman and Hall in 1880 and the third volume in London by Chapman and Hall in 1882, they were all printed by Charles Dickens and Evans at the Crystal Palace Press and bound by Morrell in London, and it is a first edition set. The books are 3/4 bound in red crimson, with five-raised bands, horizontal gilt lines, gilt letters, gilt decorations, and gilt dates on the spines, paisley marbled endpapers with the bookplate of William King Richardson on the front paste-downs, “Morrell Binder London” is stamped in small letters at the top of the first blank endpapers, then the half-titles, the title pages, the printer’s information on the reverse of the title page, an Errata slip is bound in before the first page of text in each volume, as called for, then the text, and the top edges are gilt. The first volume covers 1833 to 1856 and has a three-page Preface, an eight-line errata slip after the preface - all four points of issue are uncorrected, which makes this a first edition as well - and 463 pages of text. Volume II covers 1857 to 1870, it has an errata slip with eleven lines - six of the seven points of issue are uncorrected - and it is 464 pages long, including the index. (The fourth point of issue is supposed to be on line 10 on page 130, but it actually appears uncorrected on line 3, and the sixth point of issue which is supposed to read “a head” in uncorrected form on page 160, line 32 has been corrected to read “ahead”, and this is the only point of issued that has been corrected.) Volume III covers 1836 to 1870 and has “1882” in gilt lettering at the boot of the spine, a one-page preface, an errata slip with six lines, the five points of issue listed on the six lines are all uncorrected, which makes this is a first edition set too, and it is 308 pages long, including the index. The third volume was added afterwards because Mamie Dickens and Georgina Hogarth (Mamie was the eldest daughter and Georgina was the sister-in-law and housekeeper of Charles Dickens) received letters that didn’t arrive in time to be included with the first two volumes, so this third volume was added later on. William King Richardson (1859 - 1951) was a prominent Boston lawyer and bibliophile who went to Harvard, where he graduated summa cum laude in 1880. He graduated from Oxford a few years later, then went to Harvard Law School. He started collecting books at the Lord Amherst of Hackney sale in 1908 and specialized in manuscripts, incunabula, illustrated books, and fine bindings; when he died, his library of nearly 1700 volumes was bequeathed to the Houghton Library at Harvard, and they are all housed in a room at the library devoted just to Richardson’s books. Each volume measures 8 3/4 x 5 3/4 in. wide with tight binding and clean pages and text. Volume I has wear along the front edge of the spine and light wear at the tips, Volume II has light rubbing along the front edge of the spine and light wear at the tips, and Volume III has rubbing and light wear along the edges of the spine, a tiny chip at the top of the spine, and light wear at the tips, and still an attractive first edition set of the letters sent by Charles Dickens during his lifetime. See Bill McBride, A Pocket Guide to the Identifications of First Editions, West Hartford, Ct., 1995 for first editions by Chapman And Hall. #236 #1650