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The Original Manuscript of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens – First Facsimile Edition – London, 1890 – Limited Edition of 500 Copies - Charles Dickens – The Christmas Carol. A Facsimile Reproduction of the Author's Original MS. [A Christmas Carol – A Facsimile Reproduction of the Author’s Original Manuscript] – Introduction by F. G. Kitton. Elliot Stock, London, 1890 – First Facsimile Edition of the Original Manuscript of the Work, Limited Edition of 500 Unnumbered Copies. An early and important facsimile edition of the original manuscript of A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens’s celebrated work. The book reproduces, page by page, the manuscript in which Dickens composed the work in 1843, allowing the reader to follow the writing process itself: Dickens’s handwriting, deletions, corrections, substitutions of words and passages, and new versions added in the course of composition – from the opening words, “Marley was dead, ” to Tiny Tim’s famous concluding words, “God Bless Us, Every One!” The edition includes an extensive bibliographical introduction by Dickens scholar Frederic George Kitton, signed at St Albans in July 1890. Kitton describes the circumstances surrounding the writing of A Christmas Carol, its extraordinary success upon its publication in December 1843, and the early editions of the work, devoting particular attention to the manuscript reproduced in the present volume. According to Kitton, Dickens wrote it at his home at 1 Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent’s Park, in black ink on bluish-white Bath Superfine paper. The manuscript comprises 66 closely written pages, in addition to the title page and dedication; on the title page Dickens wrote: “My own, and only MS. of the Book – Charles Dickens.” After the work was completed, the original manuscript was bound in red morocco, with the name of Thomas Mitton appearing on the binding. At the time Kitton wrote his introduction to the present edition, the manuscript was in the possession of Dickens collector Stuart M. Samuel, who had acquired it after it was offered for sale for £300. Kitton emphasizes the significance of the deletions and corrections visible in the facsimile, which reveal how Dickens repeatedly returned to the text and refined its wording during the writing process. A Christmas Carol, written in 1843, tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a wealthy and miserly businessman who undergoes a profound transformation on Christmas Eve following an encounter with the ghost of his deceased business partner and the three Spirits of Christmas. Through Scrooge and the Cratchit family, Dickens addressed poverty, social inequality, responsibility toward others, and the possibility of moral redemption. The book was an immediate success: Kitton states in his introduction that 6,000 copies of the first edition were sold on the first day, and that by early January 1844 several thousand additional copies of subsequent editions had already been sold. The present facsimile was published in London in 1890 by Elliot Stock in a limited edition of 500 unnumbered copies. A separate American edition of 250 numbered copies was published simultaneously in New York by Brentano’s. [1] leaf, viii pages of introduction, [68] facsimile leaves. Some leaves unopened. Original half-vellum binding. Good condition.