Charles Dickens, Arthur Rackham

Finely bound limited signed edition of Dickens' Christmas Carol, illustrated and signed by Rackham.

• Charles Dickens (English).
• Illustrations by Arthur Rackham (English).
• London: Heinemann, 1915.
• Limited edition of 525 copies, illustrated and signed by Arthur Rackham, this being number 226.
• Bound in the original gilt-stamped vellum, pictorial pastedowns and endpapers, top edge gilt others uncut and unopened as issued.

Regarded as Dickens' most widely read novel and considered to be "the greatest Christmas book ever written in any language" (Eckel p. 116), selling more than 6,000 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 1840s, maintaining "the Carol" philosophy to "strike a sledgehammer blow" for the poor, uneducated and repressed.