Charles Dickens

A first edition, first issue of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.

• Charles Dickens (English).
• A Christmas Carol In Prose Being A Ghost Story of Christmas.
• London: Chapman And Hall, 1843.
• Illustrated with 4 hand colored engraved plates by John Leech and 4 black and white illustrations by W.J. Linton.
• Chapter heading reading "Stave I." 
• Bound in the publisher's original gilt and blind stamped mauve cloth, spine expertly relined with the original spine laid down, back corners square, front cover has a perfect 'D' in 'Dickens', yellow pastedowns and endpapers, all edges gilt.

Regarded as Dicken's most widely read novel and considered to be "the greatest Christmas book ever written in any language" (Eckel p. 116) selling more than 6000 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 1840's, maintaining "the Carol" philosophy to "strike a sledgehammer blow" for the poor, uneducated, and repressed.