The Works of Charles Dickens
Household Edition. . New York :Sheldon & Company.
IT is not our intention, at the present writing, to enter into any discussion concerning the characteristics or the value of the novels of Charles Dickens: we have neither time nor space for it. Besides, to few of our readers do these books need introduction or recommendation from us. They have long been accepted by the world as worthy to rank among those works of genius which harmonize alike with the thoughtful mind of the cultivated and the simple feelings of the unlearned, — which discover in every class and condition of men some truth or beauty for all humanity. They are, in the full sense of the word, household books, as indispensable as Sliakspeare or Milton, Scott or Irving.
We may fairly say of the various editions of Dickens’s writings, that their “ name is Legion.” None of them all, however, is better adapted to common libraries than the new edition now publishing in New York. It will he comprised in fifty volumes, to be published in instalments at intervals of six or eight weeks. The mechanical execution is most commendable in every respect: clear, pleasantly tinted paper; typography in the best style of the Riverside Press ; binding novel and tasteful. A vignette, designed either by Darley or Gilbert, and engraved upon steel, is prefixed to each volume. We have to congratulate the publishers that they have so successfully fulfilled the promises of their prospectus, and the public that an edition at once elegant and inexpensive is now provided.