Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, first edition , Gimbel's second state, title printed in red & blue, half-title and verso of title printed in blue, 'Stave I' to head of p.1, 4 hand-coloured etched plates by & after Leech and 4 plain woodcut vignettes by Linton after Leech, 2pp. advertisements, yellow endpapers, woodcut bookplate of Wilfred Hulbert, St Andrews, on front pastedown with related gift inscription beneath, upper hinge pulling slightly with splitting to endpapers, light ablating to front fly-leaf, original first issue cloth with unbroken 'D' within wreath and minimum 14mm gap between blind border and gilt cartouche, slight cocking, superficial splitting to cloth at upper joint, g.e., [Smith II 4], 8vo , 1844 [1843]. An attractive copy of the first edition of Dickens' classic supernatural Christmas tale, with the excellent illustrations by Leech. According to Richard Gimbel in his 1958 work The Earliest State of the First Edition of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol , Dickens was very involved with the production of the work, stipulating the number of illustrations, style of binding, endpapers and even the printing colour for the title and half-title, which he wanted in seasonal green & red. Unfortunately the resultant production did not come out as he had hoped, the green being too drab, as a result of which the title and half-title were reprinted in blue & red and the printed date changed to 1844.