Arcade Sale | London
Arcade Sale | London
No reserve
Lot Closed
October 29, 02:18 PM GMT
Estimate
7,000 - 9,000 GBP
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Description
Charles Dickens.
A set of the five Christmas Books, first editions:
i) A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. London: Chapman & Hall, 1843, FIRST EDITION, blue and red title-page, hand-coloured frontispiece, half-title printed in blue, 3 hand-coloured etched plates and 4 woodcuts in the text by John Leech, 2 pages of publisher's advertisements, green endpapers bound in, previous ownership inscription in ink on one endpaper ("Sam[ue]l Sudlow 1844"), some staining especially to title page and contents page
ii) The Chimes: A Goblin Story. London: Chapman & Hall, 1845, FIRST EDITION, additional vignette title (first issue) and frontispiece, 11 wood-engraved text vignettes, half-title, advertisement for tenth edition of A Christmas Carol before half-title
iii) The Cricket on the Hearth. London: For the author by Bradbury and Evans, 1846, FIRST EDITION, additional wood-engraved title-page and frontispiece after Maclise, wood-engraved text vignettes, half-title, 2 pages of publisher's advertisements at end
iv) The Battle of Life. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1846, FIRST EDITION, additional pictorial wood-engraved title-page (fourth state) and frontispiece after Maclise, wood-engraved text vignettes, half-title, 2 pages of publisher's advertisements at end
v) The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1848, FIRST EDITION, additional pictorial wood-engraved title-page and frontispiece after John Tenniel by Martin and Corbould, wood-engraved text vignettes, preliminary advertisement leaf
All five volumes uniformly bound in nineteenth-century red calf by Bartlett and Co., Boston, spine gilt and decorated in compartments, all original cloth bindings preserved and bound in at end, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt, preserved in a green morocco backed folding box, spine titled and decorated in gilt, some browning, preserved bindings with some wear and soiling, binding for A Christmas Carol with some spotting to upper cover, bumped (5)
Dickens can be credited with distilling, for all, the modern idea of Christmas through his careful reverence and description of the wondrous traditions and their deeper social purpose. The first and most famous of his Christmas books, A Christmas Carol, was an immense success, with the first edition selling out by Christmas Eve following its release on 19 December.