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Please upload some information on Volume I.

The early autumn of 1860 brought significant changes in Dickens’s life. With the sale of Tavistock House complete by the end of August, Dickens was ready to leave his former London home and settle at Gad’s Hill Place, Rochester. From October onwards, this ‘little Freehold’ property, acquired five years ago as a summer retreat (Letters, VII, p. 532), became his permanent residence until his death in June 1870. [1] Bringing a friend up to date, Dickens described how, having sold Tavistock House, he was ‘making this rather complete in its way, and am on the restless eve of beginning a new big [i.e. monthly] book’ (Letters, IX, p. 309). Other projects included preparations for the next Christmas Number of All the Year Round, a charitable reading at the Rochester and Chatham Mechanics’ Institute in December and six public readings in St Martin’s Hall, London, scheduled for the Spring of 1861. In November he travelled to north Devon with Wilkie Collins to gather material for the Christmas story that became 'A Message from the Sea' (p. 573), and then remained at Gad’s Hill for the remainder of the year. By mid-February 1861, he was established in ‘a furnished house’ at 3 Hanover Terrace, Regent’s Park, taken for "the season"’ (Letters, IX, p. 360). This served as his London base until mid-June from which he continued writing and preparing for the Spring public readings.

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The ‘fatigue and excitement’ produced by six Spring readings at St James’s Hall, London, ‘in conjunction with a story’, left Dickens exhausted by the end of June 1861. Earlier in May, he had been troubled with neuralgic pains in the face, prompting him to call off social engagements, keep out of hot rooms and avoid late dinners, postpone a scheduled speech at the Annual Dinner of the Newsvendors’ Institution till next year and devote his energy to completing Great Expectations. ‘I have just finished my book’, he wrote to W. C. Macready on 11 June, ‘and am the worse for wear’. Quitting London and returning to Gad’s Hill provided the break he needed. In ‘the first desperate laziness’ of having ‘done’ his book, he joked to Forster, he thought of offering himself ‘to the village school as a live example of that vice for the edification of youth’.[1]

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VOLUME INTRODUCTION
From 28 September 1861 to 8 March 1862
Nos. 127 - 150

Background
Serial Fiction
Other series & Short fiction
Extra Number for Christmas
Poetry
Current Affairs (domestic /international politics)
Current affairs (social & cultural)
Science
Editorial Issues
Bibliography / Abbreviations

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Note: 20 pages of the Extra Number for Christmas (pp. 15-34 inclusive) are missing from the original volume scanned. The digitization of this particular volume has been completed correctly, but in order to provide a full text and set of facsimile pages, DJO will endeavour to supply the missing pages in due course and integrate them with the existing material.

Pages 41 and 42 of the Extra Double Christms Number, 'Mugby Junction', are missing.

This appears to be a badly made up volume, containing, between No. 453 and No. 454, a further copy of the Extra Double Christmas Number for 1867, No Thoroughfare bound in instead. This simply interrupts the pagination of the original. It would be desirable -- if  possible -- to unpublish these 48 pages, so that the pagination follows the actual. (J. Drew, 24/1/2011)

The extra 48 pages have been removed, and the pagination has been updated. (J. Ehlers, 1/11/2011)