In dealing with the episode of the suppressed plate in _Oliver Twist_ we must be careful to bear in mind the fact that between the publication of _Pickwick_ and the later novel there was an essential difference. The former was first published in self-contained parts, whereas the latter was published _serially_ in _Bentley’s Miscellany_. Hence, the first editions of _Pickwick_ in book form are to be met with bound from the parts, whereas the first editions in book-form of _Oliver Twist_ are only to be found as issued by the publishers complete in three volumes. And unless we grasp this distinction at the outset we shall find it impossible to understand the apparently erratic appearance and disappearance {44} of the suppressed plate of “Rose Maylie and Oliver: the Fireside Scene” and its substitute. The first instalment of the novel was published in the second number of _Bentley’s Miscellany_, February 1837, and it continued to run for nearly two years and a quarter. From this it will be seen that the last instalment of the novel was not published until three months of the year 1839 had elapsed. In the meantime, however, the novel and the illustrations had been completed, and the whole story was printed in book form and published in three volumes in the second year of its serial issue, the exact date being November 9, 1838. As a consequence we shall find the following curious result—namely, that the owners of the very earliest issue of _Oliver Twist_ find themselves not in the happy possession of the suppressed plate, as would be naturally expected, but in the melancholy possession of its exceedingly ugly substitute. This, to the uninitiated, would prove as great a puzzle as to Macaulay’s New Zealander would appear the fact that in Truro Cathedral the older {45} structure is of a later style than the new. But this is comparing small things with great. For we are fain to confess that, unlike the law, _de minimis curat helluo librorum_. Thus, then, we have to face this apparent anomaly, that, to possess a copy of _Oliver Twist_ with brightest impressions of the etchings throughout, we are under the necessity of combining the early plates from _Bentley’s Miscellany_ with the later plates from the first edition published in volume form. This not uninteresting fact I may, I believe, claim to be the first to point out, and it goes far to explain a very misleading note on p. 151 of Reid’s monumental _Catalogue of George Cruikshank’s Works_, which shows clearly that the late Keeper of the Prints was greatly at sea in the matter.