A Christmas Carol, in Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas; The Chimes; The Cricket on the Hearth; The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain
London: Chapman & Hall / Bradbury & Evans, 1844-1848. "A Christmas Carol" illustrated by John Leech, including four hand-colored engravings. Full red leather over boards, by Bayntun (Riviere). Sixteenmos.
Beautiful early printing of Dickens' enduring classic, "A Christmas Carol," together with contemporaneous copies of three of his other Christmas books, all uniformly bound by Bayntun Riviere.
"A Christmas Carol" closely matches the first printing of just a year earlier in 1843, with the colored frontispiece of Mr. Fezziwig's Christmas Ball and its intact tissue guard, facing the title page which is printed in two colors.
Each of the other volumes has a double-spread illustration preceding the title page. "The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain" is a first edition, and the others are within a year of their respective first editions.
A beautiful, contemporaneous copy of one of literature's greatest Christmas stories, accompanied by three other worthy efforts.
Each volume bound in red leather over boards with gilt border rules to both boards, gilt-stamped spine ornaments and titles, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. "A Christmas Carol" has mild rubbing along joints, and a few other scattered rubs, but overall near fine. Other volumes similar.
Item #1757
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