“THE ONE GREAT CHRISTMAS MYTH OF MODERN LITERATURE”: FIRST EDITIONS OF DICKENS’ ILLUSTRATED CHRISTMAS BOOKS, INCLUDING THE FIRST ISSUE OF A CHRISTMAS CAROL, ALL IN ORIGINAL GILT-DECORATED CLOTH

DICKENS, Charles. The Christmas Books. London: 1843-48. Together, five volumes. Small octavo, original red cloth, gilt-decorated covers and spines, all edges gilt. Housed together in a custom clamshell box.    $24,000.

First editions of all five of Charles Dickens’ Christmas Books—chief among them a first issue of his immortal Christmas Carol, the veritable “Bible of Christmas”—illustrated with 63 engravings, four in color, by Leech, Maclise, Stanfield, Doyle and Landseer, all books in the original gilt-decorated cloth.

Written quickly over 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,” and so influential a work it “may readily be called the Bible of Christmas” (Eckel, 110). Produced under Dickens’ careful supervision and exacting standards, it became the only one of his first editions to contain color plates. “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). Dickens followed its success with four more Christmas books. In each book, he deftly develops the themes of the first, ideals that have consequently become inseparable from the holiday itself: love and redemption, charity and mercy. This set contains: First edition, first issue of A Christmas Carol, with blue and red title page dated 1843, half title and verso of title page printed in blue, “Stave I” on page [1] and light green endpapers, with the four color plates; First edition, second issue of The Chimes, with the Chapman & Hall imprint burnished out of the design on the engraved title page and re-engraved beneath the image; First edtion of The Battle of Life with vignette title page in fourth state as usual, with the subtitle “A Love Story” on a scroll carried by a cupid and no publisher’s imprint; First edition of The Cricket on the Hearth, with second state of advertising leaf at rear; First edition of The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain. Eckel, 110-125. Smith II:4-6, 8-9. Owner signatures in several volumes; bookplates to rear pastedowns of all books save A Christmas Carol.

Only a bit of scattered light foxing; minor expert restoration to spine ends and a bit of pigment restoration to A Christmas Carol. The Battle of Life with light sunning to spine. The Cricket on the Hearth with a few spots of soiling to rear board. An attractive set in near-fine condition.