Thirteenth edition, the first to be solely published by Bradbury & Evans. 12mo. Original red cloth stamped in blind, lettered and decorated in gilt to the spine and upper cover. Yellow endpapers. Red and blue title page dated 1855. One page of adverts at the rear. All edges gilt. Inscribed by Dickens to the half title "Charles Dickens August Twenty Fourth 1857" Four hand coloured plates by John Leech, with four woodcuts in the text. A very good copy with some wear to the spine ends and corners and a superficial repair to the head of the spine. Internally fresh with hinges splitting but sound.

A rare signed copy of perhaps the most enduring of all Dickens' works. The date of the inscription coincides with an amateur production of a play he had written with Wilkie Collins, The Frozen Deep, in Manchester, as a fund raising event in aid of the family of his friend Douglas Jerrold, who had died in June of that year. Dickens played the lead roll, an Arctic explorer who falls hopelessly in love with a woman but in the end nobly sacrifices himself to save the life of a rival.
He hired an established actress, Frances Ternan, and her two daughters, Maria and Ellen. Although Dickens later wrote in praise of Maria Ternan's performance, it is Ellen "Nelly" Ternan who truly caught his attention. These performances heralded the beginning of a twelve year intimate relationship with Nelly that that lasted until Dickens' death in 1870.
Dickens biographer Peter Ackroyd noted, "the effect of meeting Ellen marks the biggest watershed in Dickens' life. He was one man before and another man after." August 24, 1857—the date of his final performance with Ellen, as well as the date he inscribed this copy of A Christmas Carol—was of great personal significance to him. Dickens wrote to Wilkie Collins months later, "The domestic unhappiness remains so strong upon me that I can't write, and (waking) can't rest, one minute. I have never known a moment's peace or content, since the last night of The Frozen Deep. I do suppose there was never a man so seized and rended by one spirit." Dickens' kept his relationship with Ellen Ternan secret (as he was still married, though separated, from his wife) and consequently destroyed much of his correspondence regarding it in his later years.

Smith II 4. Gimbel A79

Stock ID: 46276