A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. by Charles Dickens - 1843

Chapman & Hall, 1843. Hardcover. Like New. in x in x in. First edition. Bound Cosway-style by Bayntun-Riviere in full red crushed levant morocco leather with five raised bands, spine and covers elaborately tooled and lettered in gilt with the front cover set with a large oval miniature painting of Dickens under glass, gilt dentelles, silk doublures and endpapers, all edges gilt. Small octavo, 6-1/2"" x 4""; [8], 166, [2, ads] pages with the original cloth covers bound in at the rear. First edition, first issue: ""Stave I""; text entirely uncorrected; green-coated endpapers; blue half-title page; red and blue title page. Four hand-colored steel engraved plates by and after Leech and four wood engraved text illustrations by W.J. Linton after Leech. Two tiny pinholes, one at the bottom of the front joint and the other at the bottom of the rear joint. Housed in a red cloth slipcase. Few books are as beloved and influential as Christmas Carol, and this is a fine, important, and sumptuous copy.