Beschreibung:

DICKENS, Charles. A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas . London: Chapman & Hall, 1843.
DICKENS, Charles. A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas . London: Chapman & Hall, 1843. 8 o . 2-page publisher's advertisement at end. Hand-colored etched frontispiece and three plates by John Leech four wood-engravings in the text by W.J. Linton after Leech. Half-title printed in blue, title-page printed in red and blue, verso printed in blue. Original brown fine-ribbed cloth, covers with decorative blind border surrounding central gilt cartouche and lettering on upper, spine lettered and decorated in gilt, all edges gilt, green endpapers (slightest toning to spine, generally fresh and bright); cloth folding case. Provenance : old ownership name on front free endpaper inked over. FIRST EDITION, TODD'S FIRST IMPRESSION, with "Stave I" as the first chapter heading, balance of text uncorrected, red and blue title-page dated 1843, green endpapers, with the first state of the binding (the closest interval between blind decorative border on the left and the left extremity of the gilt cartouche measuring 14-15 mm and the "D" of Dickens unbroken). A MASTERPIECE OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AND ARGUABLY THE MOST WIDELY READ AND BEST KNOWN OF DICKENS'S WORKS. Written in a frenzy of less than a month with passion echoed in a letter to his American friend Professor Cornelius Felton, dated 2nd January 1844: "... a Ghost Story of Christmas by Charles Dickens Over which Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens wept, and laughed, and wept again, and excited himself in a most extraordinary manner in the composition; and thinking whereof, he walked about the black streets of London, fifteen and twenty miles, many a night when all the sober folks had gone to bed. He don't like America, I am told, but he has some friends there, as dear to him as any in England; so you may read it safely. Its success is most prodigious." Eckel, p. 110; Kitton, pp. 33-37; Smith II:4.