88 weekly parts, 8vo (267 x 180 mm). Three frontispieces and numerous wood engravings in the text by George Cattermole, Hablot K. Browne and others. (Some soiling and chipping, a few soft creases.) Original pictorial printed white self-wrappers, uncut (some chipping and light soiling, a few leaves becoming detached); green cloth slipcase and chemise.

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, IN THE ORIGINAL 88 WEEKLY PARTS. With preliminaries (frontispiece, title-page, and Preface) for the three volume edition present in numbers 26, 52, and 88; addresses by the author in parts 9, 80-83, and 87; a tipped in advertisement to pt. 62 for Chambers’s Journal of Literature, Poetry, Biography, and Adventure. Each weekly part was issued as a single folded sheet of 16 pages, 4 of which formed the outer wrapper around 12 numbered pages of letterpress. "Of the four issues the weekly one is difficult to obtain in a clean condition and is therefore the costliest" (Eckel). All 88 parts include front wrappers with an engraved design by George Cattermole which was engraved in wood by E. Landells. One of the first works to be published in both weekly and monthly parts, a strategy which proved unsuccessful. Eckel, pp. 61-65; Hatton & Cleaver, pp. 161-182.