His was a vision of sizzling geese with the stuffing falling out, puddings like cannonballs blazing with brandy, bowls of punch, hoards of children and Dickens himself in the role of storyteller. Two pages, small octavo (tipped to front blank leaf).There is nothing more Dickensian than the Dickens Christmas. Autograph letter signed ('Charles Dickens') to John Dillon, London, 8 February 1844. Walker (bookplate 1886) - Sir Edward Priaulx Tennant (bookplate 1917) - Christie’s New York 5 December 1997, lot 240. Provenance: John Dillon (items tipped in, signature and dated 1844 on front blank leaf) - H. Nineteenth-century gilt dark green morocco, gilt-ruled inner dentelles, marbled endpapers (light wear at caps and joints). 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. Half-title, title printed in red and blue (without ad leaf). For the letter, see Kathleen Mary Tillotson, editor, Letters of Charles Dickens Volume 4 (1997), p.39.

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. I heard of it with great sorrow at the time and have often inquired concerning you, of mutual friends. I will not venture to condole with you, upon the loss you have sustained. No roar of approbation that human voice could set up, would affect me like the faintest whisper of a home such as yours.

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…’ĭickens' 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. I described as ‘to me more than my son - all my plans of life & hopes of enjoyment having been more or less him - perhaps too much so.

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. 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. 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). London: Chapman & Hall, 1843.įirst edition and first impression of 'The Bible of Christmas,' with a poignant letter from Dickens discussing the novel (Eckel).

A christmas carol first edition