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: 112306

London: Chapman and Hall, 1845-60.

First edition, early printings of all five of Charles Dickens’ Christmas Books exquisitely bound by Bayntun-Riviere. Octavo, 5 volumes, bound in full red polished calf by Bayntun-Riviere with elaborate gilt tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, black and green morocco spine labels lettered in gilt, double gilt ruled panels, gilt turn-ins and inner dentelles, all edges gilt, marbled endpapers. Illustrated with sixty-three engravings altogether, four in color, by Leech, Maclise, Stanfield, Doyle and Landseer. Housed in a custom red buckram slipcase. In fine condition. An exceptional set.

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."