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A Christmas Carol

Lot 164
06.10.2022 12:00UTC -05:00
Classic
Sold
$ 32 760
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUSA, New York
Archive
The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 813733
Lot 164 | A Christmas Carol
Estimate value
$ 25 000 – 35 000
A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens, 1843

DICKENS, Charles (1812-1870). A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. London: Chapman & Hall, 1843.



First edition and first impression of "The Bible of Christmas," with a poignant letter from Dickens discussing the novel (Eckel). First issue with Stave I” on page [1]. This book, which has come to define Christmas in the Anglophone imagination, was immediately popular—selling out within the month of its publication (by Christmas Eve). This copy includes a letter from Dickens to a friend, for whom A Christmas Carol was a major comfort after the death of his son.



John Dillon, a London philanthropist, explains in a note included here that he had written a letter to Dickens sharing that he "had lost by death one who ... I described as ‘to me more than my son – all my plans of life & hopes of enjoyment having been more or less [centered on] him – perhaps too much so. From that moment…to the present, I have met with few things, certainly I have read no book of our own age which has given me such relief – rather I should say afforded me so much consolation as I have derived from the kindly humanizing & therefore cheerful spirit of the Christmas Carol…’



Dickens' tender letter in response assures him: “trust me you were not wrong in believing – in feeling well-assured I hope – that the testimony you bear to the success of my little book, would sink deep into my heart, and fill it with sad delight. Nothing could teach me half so nearly. No roar of approbation that human voice could set up, would affect me like the faintest whisper of a home such as yours. I will not venture to condole with you, upon the loss you have sustained. I heard of it with great sorrow at the time; and have often inquired concerning you, of mutual friends. I shall ever prize your letter. I thank God for the high privilege of speaking to the secret hearts of those who are in grief like yours; and I thank you…for the courage you have given me.” Eckel 110-114; Podeschi/Gimbel A79. For the letter, see Kathleen Mary Tillotson, editor, Letters of Charles Dickens Volume 4 (1997), p.39.



Small octavo. Half-title, title printed in red and blue (without ad leaf). Four hand-colored etched plates by John Leech, an engraved portrait (proof on india paper) of Dickens inserted as a frontispiece, four text wood engravings by W.J. Linton after Leech. Nineteenth-century gilt dark green morocco, gilt-ruled inner dentelles, marbled endpapers (light wear at caps and joints). Provenance: John Dillon (items tipped in, signature and dated 1844 on front blank leaf) – H. & C. Walker (bookplate; 1886) – Sir Edward Priaulx Tennant (bookplate; 1917) – Christie’s New York 5 December 1997, lot 240.



[With:] Autograph letter signed ('Charles Dickens') to John Dillon, London, 8 February 1844. Two pages, small octavo (tipped to front blank leaf).

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