Rare edition with unique illustrations. Dombey and Son is the earliest novel of Dickens for which a complete set of working notes survives. Dickens called these notes "mems" witch is short for memoranda. The mems allowed him to keep track of complicated plot lines and the many characters that populate his novels. These working notes for Dombey and Son reveal that young Paul Dombey was doomed to die from the first moment that Dickens created him. Although he did live for one chapter longer than Dickens originally intended. Walter Gay was originally intended to go bad was saved from that fate. Edith, the second Mrs. Dombey, was bound for adultery and death, but Dickens spared her character at the urgings of his friend Lord Jeffrey.