A Christmas Carol In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. By Charles Dickens. With a Coloured Etching. Edition Sanctioned By The Author. Leipzig. Bernh. Tauchnitz Jun. 1843. 78pp, 12mo.
THE VERY RARE TRUE FIRST EDITION OF DICKENS' A CHRISTMAS CAROL, TODD & BOWDEN'S STATE Aa FOR WHICH THEY IDENTIFIED ONLY ONE KNOWN COPY. HERE A PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN COPY IN ITS COMPLETELY ORIGINAL CLOTH BINDING!
There are currently no known copies in the original cloth binding in the bibliographical record. Todd & Bowden identify only one known copy in the true first state as this is. One of the greatest rarities in Dickens collecting.
-------------------
This is a book which is notorious for being incredibly difficult to find the true first edition of, as later printings as late as 1868 included the 1843 date to the title page which are often erroneously described as being the first edition. This example offered for sale is the true first edition in state Aa, the most desirable of all states for being the very first printing, preceding the first Chapman and Hall edition by a few days.
For a copy to be identified as the first printing, it must have 78 numbered pages, must show the publisher as precisely 'Bernh. Tauchnitz Jun.' on the title page and refer to the book being an 'Edition Sanctioned By The Author'. It should also say 'Printed by Bernh. Tauchnitz Jun.' at the foot of the final page and have a frontispiece entitled 'Marley's Ghost', described on the title page as being a coloured etching, although according to the bibliography it is really a coloured lithograph. Even after meeting all of these requirements, there are two variants, Aa and Ab. The Aa [first] state finishes with 'THE END' with the second state finishing 'THE E .' - with the letters ND missing. Precedence is given to state Aa as the 'ND' of state Ab was accidentally dropped in reimpression from standing type.
Todd and Bowden in the bibliography identified only a single known copy of impression Aa, in their own collection, now held in the British Library. They also identified three surviving copies of impression Ab in Amsterdam, Yale, and Munich, the last of which now held in a private collection held at the National Library of Scotland.
The most common error made with dating this book is that the 1846 reproduction substituted 'Copyright Edition' for 'Edition Sanctioned By The Author'. This copy offered for sale meets all requirements for the true first edition of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, one of the greatest rarities in Dickens collecting, up there with a true first impression of The Pickwick Papers in rarity.
The story of how the book came to be published prior to the Chapman & Hall edition is of course also very interesting. In 1843, Charles Dickens signed an agreement allowing Leipzig publisher Bernard Tauchnitz to publish his works, only in the English language and only on the European continent, simultaneously with their publication in London by Chapman and Hall. It was to appear as part of the 'Collection of British Authors' series which had commenced in 1841 with its target market being the English tourists in Europe. It is well known that the British first edition of A Christmas Carol appeared on December 19th 1843, just in time for Christmas sales. What is less well known is that this Tauchnitz edition was (probably accidentally!) published a few days before the Chapman and Hall edition. Tauchnitz announced the 'imminent publication' of this work on December 4th and it appeared in the trade gazette Borsenblatt fur den Deutschen Buchhandel on December 8th. It featured just a single coloured frontispiece illustration by John Leech compared to the Chapman & Hall edition's four coloured and four black and white illustrations throughout and was in cheaper plain cloth binding compared to the elaborate gilt tooled red cloth Chapman & Hall edition. According to Podeschi A82, 'the few copies of this fragile continental reproduction which have survived are often rebound. It is, perhaps unsurprisingly, little encountered either commercially or institutionally; a far rarer work than the Chapman and Hall edition.'
-------------------
Sutherland, John. "Tauchnitz." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989. P. 619.
Todd, William B. "Tauchnitz Editions." Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia. Ed. Sally Mitchell. New York and London: Garland, 1988. P. 780.
Davis, Paul. "Tauchnitz, Baron Christian Bernard (1816-1895)." Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File and Checkmark Books, 1998. P. 383.
Condition:
The greatest example of this incredibly rare book one is ever likely to come across. The pinnacle of Dickens collecting. Bound in its original cloth and collated as complete. Original green endpapers without any bookplates or ownership inscriptions throughout. No bookseller marks or any pencil marks. Complete with the original half title page and pink tissue guard for the frontispiece apparently as published. Spine sunned also affecting the extremities of the boards. Very minor shelf wear. A thin volume and thus difficult for it to independently stand in any event, but appears to be without shelf lean and the binding is not cocked. Very slight deformation to corners. Minor wear to foot of front board. Original gilt title present to spine. Internally excellent, without any foxing, tears, rips, stains etc. Some ink offsetting to pink tissue guard for frontis as typical. 'Stave I' header to pp.1 following the first impression text of the Chapman and Hall edition with a similar typeset and with the same preface dated December 1843.
A truly excellent example of the pinnacle of Dickens collecting.
