Bonhams
Lot 59
DICKENS (CHARLES)A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, with title-page dated 1843 printed in red and blue, the text uncorrected, 'Stave I' on p.[1] and light green endpapers, hand-coloured etched frontispiece and 3 plates after John Leech, 4 wood-engravings by W.J. Linton after Leech in the text, 2pp. advertisements at the end, light tone to title-page, publisher's cinnamon vertically-ribbed cloth, stamped in blind and gilt (Todd's first impression, first issue, first state, with 14-15mm. between closest points of blind-stamping and gold wreath on upper cover, and the 'D' of 'Dickens' unbroken), g.e., 2 very small tears at head of spine and one at foot, preserved in red morocco-backed solander box by Zaehnsdorf [Eckel pp.110-115; Smith II:4; William B. Todd, in The Book Collector, Winter 1961, pp.449-454], 12mo (166 x 102mm.), Chapman & Hall, 1843Footnotes:AN EXCEPTIONALLY GOOD COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION OF DICKENS'S FIRST AND MOST ENDURING CHRISTMAS BOOK. A Christmas Carol was published on 19 December 1843, at 5s. 'Its popularity was extraordinary and by every post he received letters from complete strangers, telling him about their home and hearths, and how this same 'Carol' was read aloud there, and kept on a little shelf by itself' (Kitton, Minor Writings, p.34). Dickens initially requested green endpapers and then discarded these due to the colour rubbing off. Demand for the book probably grew at such a pace that the stock of yellow endpapers was exhausted, necessitating the use of the discarded green endpapers until new stock of the yellow could be obtained. Hence, although the green endpapers were printed first, the first copies to be actually issued had yellow endpapers. William B. Todd concludes that priority is impossible to determine due to the various combinations of plates but that priority can be determined by the state of the binding.Provenance: Sotheby's, 16 December 2004, lot 136.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: •• Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com
