Large quarto. Original full vellum, titles and pictorial decoration to spine and front board and top edge gilt, others untrimmed, pictorial endpapers, silk ribbon ties lacking (one laid in). Signed limited edition, number 172 of only 525 copies, of the “Bible of Christmas,” with tipped-in colour frontispiece and 11 plates on grey paper with printed tissue-guards, and 20 in-text line cuts by Rackham and signed by him.

“The Christmas gift-book proved an excellent market for Rackham. His sensitive and agile line earned him the appreciation of connoisseurs, while his care for the spirit of each text commended him alike to children and adults” (DNB). A Christmas Carol marks the first time Rackham illustrated Dickens’ work. Dickens’ Carol was first published in 1843 and “may readily be called the Bible of Christmas” (Eckel, 110). Latimore & Haskell, 44-45. Riall, 124.

Plates and text fine, light foxing to endpapers and a handful of other pages, original vellum exceptionally clean and bright. A fine copy, quite scarce in such lovely condition.