Charles Dickens

Fine copy of the thirteenth edition of Dickens' famous children's story.

• Charles Dickens (English).
• A Christmas Carol in Prose Being a Ghost Story of Christmas.
• London: Bradbury & Evans, 1855.
• Title page printed in red and blue, hand-colored frontispiece and 3 plates by John Leech, 1 page advertisement in rear.
• Bound in the publisher's original gilt and blind stamped red cloth, all edges gilt.
• Housed in a leather-backed clamshell slipcase, raised bands, gilt lettered spine.

An unusually fine copy of a somewhat elusive edition. RBH locate only 4 copies ever appearing at auction. Regarded as Dickens' most widely read novel and considered to be "the greatest Christmas book ever written in any language" (Eckel p. 116) selling more than 6,000 copies in the few days leading up to Christmas. The work was extravagantly costly as Dickens for the first time (and incidentally his last) used color in the title page and etchings, as he wanted to make the book a beautiful gift and to be a celebration of the Christmas spirit. After the initial success, Dickens continued the series throughout the 1840s, maintaining the Carol philosophy to "strike a sledgehammer blow" for the poor, uneducated and repressed.