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No Thoroughfare — cover
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Aeneas Press edition Victorian First published 1867

No Thoroughfare

by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins

The book, and the century it came out of.

A foundling from the Hospital, a wine merchant’s clerk, two men with the same name, and a murder attempt on a pass above the Simplon. Dickens and Collins were friends and travelling companions for fifteen years — Collins’s brother married Dickens’s daughter — and wrote this together for the Christmas number of 1867, then turned it into a play the same season. The Alpine chapters are Collins; the Foundling Hospital is Dickens. Illustrated with 54 full-page plates — paintings by Ince, Jones and Huskisson among them.

Day of the month and year, November the thirtieth, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five.
The first sentence of No Thoroughfare
A note on this edition

No Thoroughfare, by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.

It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.

The edition
Format
Ebook
Extent
about 144 pages
Reading time
about 3 hours
Illustrations
Full-page plates, credited
Text
Complete, unabridged
Language
en
This edition
2026
ISBN
9785501469853
The plates

54 paintings are bound into this edition

Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.

Das Ulmer Munster, Max Emanuel Ainmiller
Das Ulmer Munster Max Emanuel Ainmiller 1859
Port Glasgow Harbour, Samuel Bough
Port Glasgow Harbour Samuel Bough 1850
La Seine et le Pont des Arts, en janvier 1848, Jean-Jacques Champin
La Seine et le Pont des Arts, en janvier 1848 Jean-Jacques Champin 1848
Lake of Constance, Sunset, Anton Zwengauer
Lake of Constance, Sunset Anton Zwengauer 1848
Hans Gude—Tessefossen I Vaga I Middagsbelysning—1848-, Hans Gude
Hans Gude—Tessefossen I Vaga I Middagsbelysning—1848- Hans Gude 1848
View of the Piazza del Duomo in Milan, Giulio Rossi
View of the Piazza del Duomo in Milan Giulio Rossi 1850
The setting

A page from this edition

Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.

A page of No Thoroughfare as set for this edition
The opening of a chapter
A page of No Thoroughfare as set for this edition
A page where a plate falls

Both photographed from the finished volume.

Colophon

No Thoroughfare, first published 1867, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Mystery & Crime shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.

Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785501469853, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.

Before you buy

Questions readers ask

Is this the whole of No Thoroughfare?
Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
What exactly did you change?
The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
Are the pictures really in the book?
Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
How long is it?
About 144 pages, which is roughly about 3 hours of reading.
What do I actually get?
An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
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No Thoroughfare
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