The Christmas Books: A Christmas Carol; The Chimes; The Battle of Life; Cricket on the Hearth; The Haunted Man and The Ghost’s Bargain.

DICKENS, Charles.

Item Number: 131441

London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd, 1899-1902.

Scarce collected edition of Dicken’s Christmas books. 12mo., 5 volumes, original three quarters morocco over marbled boards with gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt, frontispiece and vignette title in color to each volume. In near fine condition. A scarce edition of Dickens’ classic work.

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."