"A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens, illustrated by Arthur Rackham, Published by J.B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, Second American edition, undated [1934], printed in Great Britain. Matches first edition in overall design and size, contains less color plates.

Hard cover, original publisher's green cloth stamped indark green (some wear and soiling, repaired cloth creases between spine and boards: see photos); 5.1/2" x 8.1/8"; color frontispiece; 147 pages printed on heavy stock paper, + 3 color plates on glossy paper [all listed plates are present], 18 b/w illustrations and decorations, some soiling, very good condition.

"At the time when Charles Dickens wrote his Christmas Carol, in 1843, he was thirty-one years old. He was in the full exuberance of his genius, at the very height of his power, and had achieved a reputation that carried already around the globe....

If one could understand the psychology of the matter, it would seem as if many masterpieces of genius, even extensive ones, often come in a single flash, emerging as it were like a point of light. So it would seem to have been with Dickens' Christmas Carol.

The central idea, the transformation of a soul, the transformation of a world of gloom to a world of light, seems to rest in the basic consciousness of the change and illumination of Dickens' own life. He had so longed for brighter things; and they had come. And so all his life he carried a passionate longing for better things to come to everybody, for wicked people to turn into good, for cruelty to melt into kindness....

With the Christmas Carol Dickens seized hold of Christmas in reality, and after that he never left it. It became the first of a long series of Christmas stories and Christmas special numbers that lasted till his death. More than any other man, or than any hundred other men, Dickens originated the Christmas literature, which plays a large part in our lives to-day...

Most people will agree that this, the first of Dickens' Christmas Books, is the best of them all: and some people will go further and say that the Christmas Carol is the greatest piece of Christmas literature ever produced."

Arthur Rackham [1867-1939], a famous British illustrator.

Although acknowledged as an accomplished black-and-white book illustrator for some years, it was the publication of his full colour plates to Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle" by Heinemann in 1905 that particularly brought him into public attention, his reputation being confirmed the following year with J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens". Income from the books was greatly augmented by annual exhibitions of the artwork at the Leicester Galleries. Rackham won a gold medal at the Milan International Exhibition in 1906 and another one at the Barcelona International Exposition in 1912. His works were included in numerous exhibitions, including one at the Louvre in Paris in 1914.

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