The Victoria Edition of the Pickwick Papers, 2 vols. (Chapman
and Hall), will doubtless be the standard edition of the famous work. Everything connected with it in the way of history, both as concerns letterpress and illustration, is given. We have original announcement and dedication, the first and later prefaces, the addresses issued with the original parts, and a suppressed note, which threw discredit on a well.known book of natural history. This, we venture to think, might have remained as it was. Dickens evidently felt that it was ill-considered, and it is hard that his second and better thought should not have been respected. To the reproduction of the suppressed illastrations no objection can be made. There is no reason why we should not have them, though the loss would not have been serious if they had been absent. Still, they are a dis- tinguishing feature in the book. The original drawings have been reproduced by a new process of photogravure. In cases where these drawings have been lost, copies in water-colour done by " Phiz " himself have been used. It only remains to say that the two volumes are in every way worthy of the occasion.
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