THE DALTONS: Or Three Roads in Life.

First edition, first printing. Two Volumes. Bound from the original serialised parts. Wrappers, adverts and tipped in flyers bound to the rear of each volume. With 47 illustrated plates, including frontispiece, by "Phiz" (Hablot K. Browne), this copy with the addition of five original drawings by the artist, mounted and bound alongside the relevant printed plates. Half and title pages to both volumes present. Finely bound in nineteenth century full dark green morocco (the spines uniformly faded to brown), with five raised bands, gilt decorated compartments (two with titles in gilt), front and rear boards triple-ruled, upper and lower edges double-ruled, in gilt, and elaborately decorated inner dentelles, also in gilt. Burgundy endpapers. All plates present and correct. In near fine condition, the bindings square and firm, the contents clean throughout. Light spotting to the fore-edge of the page block, marginally to some of the pages, and to the binder's blank pages front and rear. A handsome set, with the wonderful addition of five original drawings by the great "Phiz".

With five original preliminary pencil drawings by "Phiz" (Hablot K. Browne), mounted and bound next to the relevant printed engraving within. The drawings are as follows: Vol. I: Frontispiece vignette. Vol. II: The Barricade, p. 110 (wonderfully elaborate); Zoe doing the Affectionate and Maternal, p. 151; The Coat, p. 341, to the recto of which is a lightly rendered pencil study of two figures, one holding a staff (or axe). According to Stephen J. M. Browne, 'The Daltons' is the longest and most elaborate of Lever's novels. It follows the careers of Peter Dalton "an absentee Irish landlord – needy, feckless, selfish, Micawberish" and his children in Germany, Austria, and Italy. "Some of the characters are involved in the Austro-Italian campaign of 1848 and the Tuscan Revolution [and there] is a study – a flattering one – of Austrian military life, and lively pictures of Anglo-Italian life in Florence." Charles James Lever was born in Dublin, and like Wilde and Beckett after him, attended Trinity College (1823–1828), taking his degree in medicine in 1831. He practised as a physician in Brussels before returning to Dublin to edit the Dublin University Magazine (1842-5). Acquainted with and respected by Dickens, Trollope and Thackeray; the latter, while noting the energy of Lever's humour, describes the salient tone as "not humour but sentiment. The spirits are mostly artificial, the fond is sadness, as appears to me to be that of most Irish writing and people." Lever died in Trieste (Joyce's home for fifteen years) in 1872, aged 65. (Stephen J. M. Brown, 'Ireland in Fiction: A Guide to Irish Novels, Tales, Romances, and Folk-lore', Dublin: 1916; Sadleir 1400).