Apparently a later state, with the verso of the contents-page numbered viii (with broken type), not the xvi of the first issue or the x which replaced it. The discrepancy was due to the suppression of Dickens' preface to this work, on the advice of John Forster and other friends of Dickens, who felt "it might be misunderstood in America at the time." Vol. I of this set is bound in horizontally ribbed cloth, Vol. II in vertically ribbed cloth, both with the same stamping of the standard binding described by Smith. Without the preliminary ad leaf in Vol. I.