?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 8,000
Dickens, Charles (1812-1870) A Christmas Carol.
London: Chapman & Hall, 1844 [1843].
Rare trial proof of the first edition, octavo, the Self copy, with title page printed in green and red and dated 1844; "Stave I" as the first chapter heading, balance of text uncorrected; two-page publisher's advertisements present after the text; illustrated with hand-colored etched frontispiece and three plates by John Leech and four text wood engravings; bound in publisher's rose-brown publisher's fine-ribbed cloth blind stamped with decorative border surrounding a central gilt cartouche and lettering on front board, the left extremity of the blind border about 14mm from gilt cartouche and the "D" in Dickens perfectly intact, cream endpapers, with the first state of the binding (the closest distance between blind decorative border on the left and the nearest extremity of the gilt cartouche measuring 14 mm and the "D" of Dickens perfect); all edges gilt, cream coated endpapers; scattered offsetting and a few creases; slightly cocked, pale stain on front cover, light wear to ends of spine, repaired tear on rear free endpaper; contained in a red cloth clamshell box; 6 1/2 x 4 in.
See Philo Calhoun and Howell J. Heaney's, "Dickens' Christmas Carol After a Hundred Years: A Study in Bibliographical Evidence," in: Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 39 (Fourth Quarter, 1945); Eckel, p. 110; Gimbel/Podeschi A79; Smith II:4.
Laura Churchyard (signature dated 1893 on front free endpaper); Henry S. Morgan (pencil note: "Lent by Mr. Henry S. Morgan Sept. 1991"); Pierpont Morgan Library (duplication note front free endpaper); William E. Self (1921-2010, bookplate and his sale;); Christie's New York 4 December 2009, Lot 68.
From the Library of the late Stanley DeForest Scott, sold to benefit the Library of the Grolier Club.
