A Christmas Carol In Prose Being A Ghost Story of Christmas by Charles Dickens, Illustrated by Charles E. Brock, 1905

Dickens, Charles. In Prose Being A Ghost Story of Christmas. London: JM Dent & Co., 1905. Illustrated by Charles E. Brock. First Edition thus. Octavo. Cream cloth hardcover boards, embossed in blue and tan. Illustrated. 

This is a 1905 edition of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, illustrated by Charles Brock. It was published by JM Dent & Co. in London. This is the first edition thus with Brock’s illustrations, of which there are eight color plates and numerous black and white illustrations. 

A Christmas Carol tells the story of a bitter old miser named Ebenezer Scrooge and his transformation into a gentler, kindlier man after visitations by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. Dickens writes of A Christmas Carol in the book’s preface: "I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book to raise the Ghost of an Idea which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their house pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it."

A Christmas Carol was first published in London by Chapman & Hall in December of 1843 and was the most successful book of the 1843 holiday season. By Christmas of that year, six thousand copies had sold. Eight stage adaptations were in production within two months of the book’s publication. It is as popular today as it was over 150 years ago. 

British illustrator Charles Edmund Brock (1870-1938) began his illustrative career working for a number of different publishers, including George Routledge & Sons and Walter Scott. But it was as an illustrator for the Cranford series published by Macmillan that he first came to public attention. Charles produced 100 black & white illustrations for an edition of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels in 1894, illustrated Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austin in 1895, and a two-volume Macmillan edition of Charles Kingsley’s Westward Ho! in 1896. At the same time, he was producing illustrations for The Sunday Magazine and Good Words, and was in great demand. 

Charles and his younger artist brother Henry Matthew Brock began working for London publisher J. M. Dent in the late 1890s. By 1898, a new printing technique of lithography emerged, which allowed inclusion of illustrations in full color. Many of the J.M. Dent publications took full advantage of this new technology, pairing full color illustrations with ornate vellum, leather, and gilt-stamped bindings.  In 1905, Brock illustrated three of Dickens’ Christmas tales for Dent, published just in time for the holiday season: A Christmas Carol, The Cricket on the Hearth, and The Chimes. A review in the December 16, 1905 issue of the New York Times wrote that the “illustrations of that excellent English artist C. E. Brock delicately and sympathetically enhance the artistic value of [the books].... He has a most delicate way of setting off what is old-fashioned through a rare combination of lavender, old rose, pea greens, and pale yellows superimposed on examples of most careful and suggestive draughtsmanship.” 

CONDITION:

Near fine condition. Octavo. First edition thus. Cream cloth boards, embossed with blue flowers and angels and tan and blue titles on front and spine, publisher's block on back board. Slight spine lean, lightly rubbed boards, light soiling on rear board. Top edge gilt, other edges untrimmed. Pencil inscriptions on front inside cover and front free endpapers. Light foxing on endpapers and title page, else clean and bright. Eight full color plates, with tissue guards, numerous black and white illustrations. 

Book Dimensions: 7 1/4” H x 4 7/8” W x 1” D

Accompanied by our company's letter of authenticity.