7 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 giltdecorated cloth. 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.” The publication history of A Christmas Carol is bibliographically complex. This copy is from the first issue, with uncorrected text (“Stave I” as the first chapter heading), the red-and-blue title page dated 1843, and all other first issue points (Smith II:4). Dickens followed A Christmas Carol’s tremendous 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. Christmas Carol extremely good with faint soiling to title page, a few spots to text, repaired tear to Plate 2, just touching image, light expert restoration to original cloth, gilt bright. Other volumes near-fine with slightly darkened spines, gilt bright. Overall, a lovely set.
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