8vo. In two volumes. v, iv, [2], 381, [1]; iv, 369pp, [1]. With an engraved frontispiece to each volume. Contemporary gilt-tooled red half-morocco, red cloth boards, marbled endpapers. A trifle rubbed, spines sunned. Marbled endpapers, internally clean and crisp.

A revised edition of British barrister Samuel Warren's (1807-1877) second novel, initially serialised in Blackwood's Magazine from 1839 to 1841. An immediate best-seller, the novel was one of the earliest narratives concerned with the legal system, and is said to have influenced Dickens, who appears to have borrowed numerous images and ideas, particularly for Bleak House (1852-53). In spite of the negative reaction of Edgar Allan Poe, who called in 'shamefully ill-written' (Graham's Magazine, November, 1841), the book was a sensational commercial success, with new print runs and updated editions published regularly to the turn of the century.