THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH: A Fairy Tale of Home.

Deluxe issue of the Charles E. Brock illustrated edition. Publisher's original full vellum with ornate gilt decoration and titles to the upper board and spine. Top edge gilt. Pages untrimmed. Red ribbon page marker. Illustrated with a frontispiece, seven full page colour illustrations and nine black and white line drawings throughout the text by C. E. Brock. A better than very good copy, the binding square and firm, the vellum clean with a (2.5cm) scuff to the fore-edge of the rear board. The gilt is bright and sharp. The contents, with a neat ownership inscription on the front free endpaper, and some foxing to the prelims and terminal leaves are otherwise clean and bright. The red ribbon marker is detached, but laid-in. An attractive example of the deluxe issue.

First published in 1845 with illustrations by John Leech, Richard Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield, Daniel Maclise and Edwin Landseer, 'The Cricket on the Hearth' is the third of Dickens's five Christmas books, preceded by 'A Christmas Carol' (1843) and 'The Chimes' (1844), and followed by 'The Battle of Life' (1846) and 'The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain' (1848).