Dickens's original artistic intent was to keep the short stories and the novels together, and the short stories and the novels were published in 1840 in three bound volumes under the title "Master Humphrey's Clock", which retains the original full and correct ordering of texts. However, Dickens himself cancelled "Master Humphrey's Clock" before 1848, and describes in a preface to "The Old Curiosity Shop" that he wishes the story to not be tied down to the miscellany within which it began. Most later anthologies published the short stories and the novels separately.