A Heritage Christmas

Charles Dickens. A Christmas carol in prose: being a ghost story of Christmas. London: Chapman & Hall, 1843.

This is a first issue, third state of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas carol, the first and most enduring of his five Christmas books.

Dickens believed a deeply-felt Christmas story with themes of poverty and social injustice was a more effective way of reaching a wide audience than through polemical pamphlets and essays. In Victorian times, Britain was experiencing somewhat of a revival of the Christmas holiday, which had not been widely celebrated at the start of the nineteenth century.

Charles Dickens. A Christmas carol in prose: being a ghost story of Christmas. London: Chapman & Hall, 1843.
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Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol. Illustrations by A.C. Michael. London: Hodder & Stoughton, [1911?]

As well as important first and early editions of Dickens’ Christmas books and Christmas stories, the Reed Dickens Collection contains numerous later illustrated editions of his Christmas-themed works.

Of these, A Christmas carol remains a story instantly recognizable, even to people who will never read one of his magnum opuses. Dickens wrote this famed novella within a few weeks in 1843, in an effort to relieve financial pressure while working on the much lengthier Martin Chuzzlewit.

Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol. Illustrations by A.C. Michael. London: Hodder & Stoughton, [1911?]
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Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol. Illustrations by Charles Green. Pears centenary edition. London: A. & F. Pears, 1912.

Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol. Illustrations by Charles Green. Pears centenary edition. London: A. & F. Pears, 1912.
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Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol. Illustrations by Libico Maraja. London: W.H. Allen, 1958.

Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol. Illustrations by Libico Maraja. London: W.H. Allen, 1958.
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