DICKENS, Charles. A Christmas Carol In Prose Being A Ghost Story of Christmas. (1844 - NINETH EDITION)

AUTHOR: DICKENS, Charles. 

TITLE: A Christmas Carol In Prose Being A Ghost Story of Christmas.

PUBLISHER: London: Chapman and Hall, 1844.

DESCRIPTION: NINETH EDITION. 1 vol., 6-5/8" x 4-7/16", chapter heading reading "Stave One", illustrated with 4 hand colored engraved plates by John Leech and 4 black and white illustrations by W.J. Linton, clean and bright. Bound in the original straight grained rose colored cloth, gilt tile and wreath to spine and front cover, yellow pastedowns and endpapers, all edges gilt.

CONDITION: Neat ownership signature to upper edge of title-page, internally clean and bright, cloth clean and bright, back corners still square, inner and outer hinges fine, foot of spine rubbed with some minor loss, lower front hinge just starting, overall a VERY GOOD unsophisticated copy.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: This was the last edition published in the same year as the original issue, which was done on Christmas eve. By the end of the next year (1844) 13 editions had been printed.

Regarded as Dicken's most widely read novel and considered to be "the greatest Christmas book ever written in any language" (Eckel p. 116) selling more than 6000 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 1840's, maintaining "the Carol" philosophy to "strike a sledgehammer blow" for the poor, uneducated, and repressed.