Great Expectations and Hard Times (Nonesuch Dickens) [Hardcover]

Charles Dickens (Author)

Book Description

Series: Nonesuch Dickens | Publication Date: November 26, 2008

Considered by many to be Dickens' masterpiece, Great Expectations, completed in 1861, tells the engrossing story of Pip, a boy whose surprising journey to adulthood is mapped by the unseen hand of an escaped convict he helps one fateful and terrifying night.

Hard Times (1853) is a gripping novel of childhood, family life, and the evils of industrialization.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"No more handsome edition of Dickens has yet appeared, nor is it easy to conceive of any which might surpass this one." --The Scotsman

From the Publisher

The classic, definitive, world-famous Nonesuch Press edition of 1937, finally available again and bound in leather and linen. The text in these stunning volumes is taken from the 1867 Chapman and Hall edition, which became known as the Charles Dickens edition and was the last edition to be corrected by the author himself. The Nonesuch edition contains full-color illustrations selected by Dickens himself, by artists including Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"), George Cruikshank, John Leech, Robert Seymour, and George Cattermole.

The Nonesuch Dickens reproduces the original elegance of these beautiful editions. Books are printed on natural cream-shade high quality stock, quarter bound in bonded leather with cloth sides, include a ribbon marker, and feature special printed endpapers. Each volume is wrapped in a protective, clear acetate jacket.

The books are available as individual volumes, or as sets. The six-volume set contains Oliver Twist, Bleak House, Christmas Books, Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, and Great Expectations together with Hard Times. The three-volume set contains A Tale of Two Cities, Little Dorrit, and The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 784 pages
• Publisher: Overlook Hardcover (November 26, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159020137X
• ISBN-13: 978-1590201374
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 6.7 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #883,279 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

One of the grand masters of Victorian literature, Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Landport, Portsea, England. He died in Kent on June 9, 1870. The second of eight children of a family continually plagued by debt, the young Dickens came to know not only hunger and privation,but also the horror of the infamous debtors' prison and the evils of child labor. A turn of fortune in the shape of a legacy brought release from the nightmare of prison and "slave" factories and afforded Dickens the opportunity of two years' formal schooling at Wellington House Academy. He worked as an attorney's clerk and newspaper reporter until his Sketches by Boz (1836) and The Pickwick Papers (1837) brought him the amazing and instant success that was to be his for the remainder of his life. In later years, the pressure of serial writing, editorial duties, lectures, and social commitments led to his separation from Catherine Hogarth after twenty-three years of marriage. It also hastened his death at the age of fifty-eight, when he was characteristically engaged in a multitude of work.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Two great classics in one handsome Nonesuch Edition, May 7, 2009

By 

Z Hayes (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Great Expectations and Hard Times (Nonesuch Dickens) (Hardcover)

My review here is not of the novel, but rather of the Nonesuch edition of Dickens' classic. The book itself is a facsimile edition of the 1937 Nonesuch Dickens, and is published by Barnes and Noble. The book itself is in quality hardback. The "Great Expectations and Hard Times" Nonesuch edition has the spine bound in leather and the rest of the cover is cloth-bound [the color is blue-grey].The dust jacket is clear quality plastic. The paper quality is of good stock and is cream in color.

The text is set in Martin's Type and the illustrations are from the original Nonesuch editions [8 illustrations in "Great Expectations", and 5 illustrations in "Hard Times"]. This is a beautiful and affordable classic and the Nonesuch Dickens Classics will enhance any collector's library.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Copy of the Famous Nonesuch Edtion, February 7, 2009

By 

Doug - Haydn Fan (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Great Expectations & Hard Times (Hardcover)

These commonly available replications of printer Frances Meynell's famous 1937 Nonesuch printing of Dickens Works should not be taken too seriously. While nicely done they are light years away from the de luxe originals. Those were printed on specially selected handmade paper, paper that managed the pretty - and quite expensive - feat of being both thin and solidly opague. Quality was the watchword throughout, and having seen a complete set years ago, I certainly would never in a million mistake one of these volumes for the 1937 edition. Taken from the 1867 Chapman and Hall edition, the last edition Dickens proofed, the 1937 Nonesuch edition of 24 volumes was as you might expect extremely expensive and very limited, selling during the depths of the Depression for fifty-six guineas, conservatively updated to be roughly $5,000 dollars in todays money. (Actually, they would sell for much, much more!)

So what then is the series listed here? Basically it's a large print hardback edition of Dickens - though currently only six volumes seem to exist. The quality is above average, with cloth boards and a spine that might - MIGHT - be leather. The books have weight - always a nice sign - and certainly are a considerable cut above the usual hardbound editions of classics proliferating bookstore shelves! Each comes with a glassine cover and a partial paper wrapper describing the Nonesuch edition. The sewn pages lie flat nicely enough - a distinct plus, and the text is not too badly printed, though by no means comes a country mile to the crisp printing of the original editions. Inside the books - I have two, this one and Bleak House - the illustrations chosen by Dickens are well done.

This is presented as a facsimile edition, but there are facsimiles and there are facsimiles. This makes a generous stab at offering a most affordable version of a printing legend, but to be honest it's not quite what it claims.

It is important, too, to note that two editions of this facsimile series seem to exist. The covers of mine are different, with an embossed image of the Nonesuch bear on a cheap Thailand Barnes and Noble edition printed by arrangement with Overlook Press, dated 2005. (The example above.) There is now a later Overlook edition from 2008. I cannot say whether it's more refined and better made than this earlier Barnes and Noble, which, by the way, did not sell well, as my copy of "Great Expectations/Hard Times" was discounted down to $6.99.

Hopefully someone will offer some additonal insights on these two versions so Amazon readers can better chose.

As it stands, these are nice hardbound versions, though they do suffer from pages that are not opague enough to hide the printing of the second side.

Happy Birthday - Charles Dickens!