The Christmas Books: A Christmas Carol; The Chimes; The Battle of Life; Cricket on the Hearth; The Haunted Man and The Ghost’s Bargain.
DICKENS, Charles.
The Christmas Books: A Christmas Carol; The Chimes; The Battle of Life; Cricket on the Hearth; The Haunted Man and The Ghost’s Bargain.
"A loving heart is the truest wisdom": First editions of the Christmas Books; A Christmas Carol Inscribed by Charles Dickens
London: Chapman & Hall, 1843.
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Item Number: 5106
First edition, second issue of A Christmas Carol, signed and dated in 1850 by Charles Dickens at the head of the preface leaf. half-title and verso of title printed in blue, title-page printed in red and blue, illustrated with hand-colored frontispiece, three hand-colored etched plates by John Leech, and four wood-engravings in the text by W.J. Linton after Leech; two pages of publisher’s advertisements after the text; with the following edition points: the first chapter heading titled “Stave I,” balance of text uncorrected, red and blue title-page dated 1843, yellow endpapers, with the first impression second issue second state of the binding (the upper serif of “D” of Dickens broken off), in publisher’s brown ribbed cloth. In very good condition. The Chimes, The Battle of Life, Cricket on the Hearth, The Haunted Man, and The Ghost’s Bargain all very good to near fine condition and housed together in a custom full morocco clamshell box that mimics the set.
A Christmas Carol "may readily be called the Bible of Christmas It was issued about ten days before Christmas, 1843, and 6000 copies were sold on the first day the number of reprintings have been so many that all attempts at the figures have been futile. Altogether 24 editions were issued in the original format" (Eckel, 110). "It was a work written at the height of Dickens’ great powers, which would add to his considerable fame, bring a new work to the English language, increase the festivities at Christmastime, and contain his most eloquent protest at the condition of the poor" (John Mortimer). "Suddenly conceived and written within a few weeks, [A Christmas Carol] was the first of Dickens’ Christmas books (a new literary genre thus created incidentally) it was an extraordinary achievement—the one great Christmas myth of modern literature."
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