Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$1610.33 + shipping
Description: First edition, bound from the original monthly parts with all but one of the 19 original front wrappers bound in, wanting Part 10. The serial ran from December 1842 to July 1844. Dickens's biographer places Martin Chuzzlewit as marking "a great change in Dickens's conception of moral characteristics. For the first time Dickens begins to explore the contradictions and difficulties of the contemporary human world; these are no longer figures defined by a single characteristic or animated by the wilful principle of a 'humour', but ones who are seen to change with the changing world, to live and grow" (Ackroyd, p. 392). Dickens wrote to a contemporary that "I think Chuzzlewit is a hundred points immeasurably the best of my stories" (letter to John Forster, 2 November 1843). Smith I.7. Peter Ackroyd, Dickens, 1990. Octavo (216 x 136 mm). Near-contemporary half vellum, smooth spine divided in compartments with a gilt Greek key roll, dark red morocco labels in two compartments, small gilt centre tools in others, single gilt fillet trimming sides and corners, marbled sides and endpapers, top edge gilt. With 18 (of 19) front wrappers from the original parts bound-in at rear. Engraved frontispiece and vignette title page (£ sign transposed, no priority), 38 plates, by Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz). Bound with half-title. Bookplate of Virginia bibliophile and historian Christopher Clark Geest (b.1936) on front pastedown and of New York advertising executive Morton Freund (1898-1990) and his wife Elizabeth R. Freund (1894-1989) on front free endpaper verso. No. 13 wrapper cropped at foot with loss to date. Vellum a little soiled, rubbing at lower edges, small paper restoration to upper margin of p. 455, contents slightly foxed, faint splash mark at upper margin of a few plates, not affecting illustrations. A very good copy, attractively bound.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Price: US$3220.66 + shipping
Description: Seventh editions of A Christmas Carol and The Chimes, and first editions of the later three titles. A set in handsome mid-nineteenth century fine vellum bindings, elaborately decorated in gilt to the spines with green and red title labels, the boards are slightly bevelled and embellished in the centre of each front panel with the original owner's monogram in gilt, bordered in triple-gilt and red, the borders repeated without monogram to the rear board, gilt decoration to all edges of the boards, flowing into fleur-de-lis patterned gilt dentelles, the text blocks with all edges gilt and marbled endpapers. To the front pastedown of each volume is the handsome colour armorial bookplate of a member of the Wilson Clan, with their motto: "Semper Vigilans" [Always Watchful]. The boards are somewhat grubby and rubbed, with cracking at several hinges and small nicks to the leather, the hinges are still reasonably secure, the extremities are slightly bumped and rubbed. The text blocks are slightly foxed, marked and age toned, A Christmas Carol retains its colour frontispiece and the 3 colour plates, all in good order, The Chimes has some dog-eared page corners. The Cricket on the Hearth is bound without ads so presumed to be a later issue and The Battle of Life is in the most commonly found fourth state. A particularly attractive uniform set of early and first editions in contemporary fine bindings.
Seller: Jonathan Frost Rare Books Limited, Liverpool, United Kingdom
Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. Chapman & Hall, 1844.
Price: US$3542.72 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Fifth edition (Chapman & Hall, 1844). Issued the year after the first edition, which was published in December 1843. Hand-coloured etched frontispiece and a further three plates by John Leech with four wood-engravings by W.J. Linton. Two pp advertisements at rear. Gilt edges with publisher's original cinnamon vertically ribbed cloth stamped in blind and gilt. Previous owner name to half-title dated 1844. Small stain on page 25 and one plate detached. A little light soiling/spotting to leaves here and there with some rubbing to edges. Hinges starting and binding a little exposed towards the rear of the book, but all pages, save for the one aforementioned plate, still firmly in place. A very good example.
Seller: Fine Book Cellar Ltd. ABA ILAB PBFA, Chelmsford, United Kingdom
DICKENS, Charles.. A Christmas Carol. 5th. Chapman & Hall. 1844, 1844.
Price: US$3542.72 + shipping
Description: Half title, col. front. & 3 other plates by John Leech, text illus., final ad. leaf. Orig. vertical fine-ribbed pink cloth, blocked & lettered in gilt; a couple of tiny ink marks on boards, spine v. sl. dulled & with sl. rubbing to extremities. Gift inscription on leading f.e.p., March 1844. a.e.g. A very nice copy as originally published.
Seller: Jarndyce, The 19th Century Booksellers, London, United Kingdom
Dickens, Charles. Charles Dickens Autograph Letter Signed.. , 1844.
Price: US$4000.00 + shipping
Description: Rare autograph letter signed by great English novelist Charles Dickens. One page, octavo, folded, the letter reads, "Devonshire Terrace Eighteenth April 1844. My Dear Mitton, I am sorry to say that plan won't do. Because although Couttsâs were so prompt and polite last time, still they did say 'that it wasnât the kind of noteâ &c &c - as I wrote you at the time. Indeed, I remember to have often heard that they avoid discounting. I wish to Heaven you could think of any other way. I will come down today, between 2 and 3. I have not seen Thomson yet. He wrote that he was coming. Likewise that his house had not bedrooms enough. and talking wildly about Houses near Belgrave Square!! Faithfully Always / CD." The recipient, Thomas Mitton was a close friend and financial adviser of Dickens' to whom he wrote frequently, particularly concerning his frustrations with book deals and travel expenses. Debt was a primary motivating factor throughout Dickens' life despite his success as a novelist. In mid-1843, sales of Martin Chuzzlewit were falling off, and his wife, Catherine, was pregnant with their fifth child. Matters worsened when Chapman & Hall, his publishers, threatened to reduce his monthly income by £50 if sales dropped further. By the end of the year, Dickens saw a change in his fortunes with the publication of A Christmas Carol which sold out days after publication and was released in thirteen subsequent editions by the end of 1844. In near fine condition. An excellent association. English writer and social critic Charles Dickens created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognized him as a literary genius.
Seller: Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, U.S.A.
Price: US$5500.00 + shipping
Description: Complete set of Charles Dickens' Christmas Books, comprising the first appearance of AÂChristmas Carol in red cloth, issued to match the others, and first editions of the remaining four. Octavo, 5 volumes, original cloth with gilt titles and tooling to the spine and front panels, all edges gilt. A Christmas Carol is a tenth edition with 4 hand-colored plates, spine neatly repaired [1844]; First edition of The Chimes: A Goblin Story with the advertisement leaf for the above edition of AÂChristmas Carol, second state of vignette title-page, recased [1845]; first edition of The Cricket on the Hearth, second state of advertisement leaf [1846]; first edition of The Battle of Life with vignette title-page in fourth state without imprint (Todd's E1) [1846]; first edition of The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain with p.161 numeral intact, spine ends repaired [Bradbury & Evans, 1848]. In very good condition. A very nice example. A Christmas Carol "may readily be called the Bible of Christmas. It was issued about ten days before Christmas, 1843, and 6000 copies were sold on the first day"(Eckel, 110). "It was a work written at the height of Dickensâ great powers, which would add to his considerable fame, bring a new work to the English language, increase the festivities at Christmastime, and contain his most eloquent protest at the condition of the poor" (John Mortimer). "Suddenly conceived and written within a few weeks, [A Christmas Carol] was the first of Dickensâ Christmas books (a new literary genre thus created incidentally) it was an extraordinary achievementâ"the one great Christmas myth of modern literature."
Seller: Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, U.S.A.