First Editions of The Christmas Books
Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol and Others
Dickens, Charles. Christmas Books, comprising A CHRISTMAS CAROL; THE CHIMES; THE BATTLE OF LIFE; THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH, and THE HAUNTED MAN AND THE GHOSTS BARGAIN (London: Bradbury and Evans and Chapman and Hall, 1843, '45, '46, '46, '48) Together 5 volumes. First editions, with "Stave I" in A CHRISTMAS CAROL, and the first issue of THE CHIMES. Numerous illustrations by John Leech, John Tenniel, Richard Doyle, and Edwin Landseer. Small 8vo, full brown calf with red morocco spines gilt, in slipcase, with the original cloth covers of each, and the green endpapers from A CHRISTMAS CAROL, bound in the rear. An attractive set.
Dickens' captured the popular imagination as no other novelist had done, he was held in in high critical esteem by contemporaries as varied as Queen Victoria and Dostoevsky. He called his extremely popular A CHRISTMAS CAROL a “whimsical sort of masque intended to awaken loving and forbearing thoughts.” The lasting appeal of this novel has proven it to be much more. It had been dramatized on the London stage within a month of its publication and has been made into no less then 17 motion pictures. |
