Dickens, Charles

12mo (164 x 100 mm). Title in red & blue dated 1843, half-title and verso of title in blue, "STAVE I" on p.1, uncorrected text, engraved frontispiece and 3 plates coloured by hand and 4 woodcuts in the text all by John Leech, 2pp. of advertisements at the end. Original cinnamon vertically-waved cloth, 14-15mm between closest points of blindstamping and gold wreath on upper cover, the "D" of "Dickens" unbroken, green endpapers, all edges gilt; some faint spots to lower cover, otherwise a superb copy.

Alain de Suzannet (armorial bookplate)

Smith II: 4

First edition, first issue. A beautiful copy of the first edition of Dickens' perennially popular novella, which almost single-handedly reinvented the modern idea of Christmas.

The various issues and states of A Christmas Carol have been argued over for generations, but the most comprehensive and cogent account is now generally accepted to be William B. Todd's "Dickens's Christmas Carol" (The Book Collector, 10, Winter 1961), synthesized by Walter E. Smith in his bibliography Charles Dickens in the Original Cloth (Los Angeles, 1983). The present copy conforms to Todd's first edition, first impression, first issue (see Smith II, p.27).