DICKENS, Charles.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

A Christmas Carol. First edition, first issue, of the defining Christmas story, one of the most culturally significant works of English literature. "It is rather as if Dickens had rewritten a religious tract and filled it both with his own memories and with all the concerns of the period. He had, in other words, created a modern fairy story. And so it has remained" (Ackroyd, p. 413).This finely bound copy incorporates the publisher's hand-coloured green free endpapers. These were Dickens's preferred choice, but as they tended to dust off and smudge, the publisher also used regular machine-coloured yellow endpapers. The contents have the first issue "Stave I" on page one, all the earliest textual readings, and the title page dated 1843 and printed in red and blue.

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