“Have I yet to learn that the hardest and best-borne trials are those which are never chronicled in any earthly record, and are suffered every day!” ― Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop
 
A rare First Edition Charles Dickens.
This exquisite edition of "The Old Curiosity Shop, a tale" is complete with illustrations by George Catermole and Hablot K. Browne. It was likely published as this complete edition in 1841 , in London by Chapman & Hall. The book is still originally bound in full calf with marbled bookblock and gilt decoration. Unfortunately, the back cover of the book just broke and is now disjointed from the spine. 
As the ‘advertisement’, stated on one of the first pages, suggests, the pagination is ‘defective’, because the stories were originally published in parts, before they were bound together in this beautiful volume: richly illustrated and beautifully clean. The binding is a little loose on the spine (now broken on the back side) and worn at the edges and corners. The interior is very neat, with an ex-libris on the pastedown, it shows the name of a merchant in the time of Dickens, maybe he was a worker at Chapman & Hall? 
The story shows us the life of Nell Trent, living with her grandfather in an old curiosity shop in London. Their lives are getting disturbed and threatened by the malices of a twisted money lender and the gambling addiction of the grandfather. Dickens unmistakeable style of story telling was responsible for the great success of this publication. Queen Victoria read the book in the publishing year and found it "very interesting and cleverly written".
 
All in all a rare, if not unique and still beautiful and enchanting First Complete Edition of a Charles Dickens classic, an edition, I could not find online (no warranty).