The complete works of Charles Dickens, published by Nonesuch Press in 1937, will come under the auctioneer's hammer at Golding Young & Mawer in Grantham on September 4 and 5.
Lot 10, the Dickens' books, edited by Waugh, Walpole, Dexter and Hatton, also include an illustrative steel plate, entitled 'Early Coaches' after George Cruikshank for Messrs Chapman & Hall Ltd, and a copy of Nonesuch Dickensiana (Retrospectus and Prospectus).
They came from a library of books offered as lot 435 by Messrs Warner Sheppard & Wade, at a house sale of The Pantiles, Gartree Road, Leicester, in September 1976 and were bought by Aidan White, a classics teacher from Leicester, who died in February 2013.
Mr White was a family friend of Richard Plant, consultant auctioneer and valuer at the Grantham sale room, who said: "These books were Aidan's pride and joy. He was a highly intellectual man who lived in Leicester all his life. He went to Oxford and served in the army in India. He was in the artillery and then the intelligence corps before becoming a teacher.
"A modern, luxury edition of Dickens' works, they would have been very expensive at the time they were published."
Mr Plant estimates this collection will realise between £3,000 and £4,000 at the sale.
