Product Description

As he composed "A Christmas Carol" in 1843, Dickens said he "wept and laughed and wept again," transported-as countless readers have been since-by the emotional power of Ebenezer Scrooge's transformation from misanthrope to man of good will. Dickens' subsequent holiday books-"The Chimes," "The Cricket on the Hearth," "The Battle of Life," and "The Haunted Man"-are also included in this Nonesuch edition, which features the author's final texts and the illustrations Dickens himself selected to compliment his words.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #454340 in Books
• Published on: 2008-11-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 512 pages

Review
"No more handsome edition of Dickens has yet appeared, nor is it easy to conceive of any which might surpass this one." --The Scotsman

From the Publisher
The classic, definitive, world-famous Nonesuch Press edition of 1937, finally available again and bound in leather and linen. The text in these stunning volumes is taken from the 1867 Chapman and Hall edition, which became known as the Charles Dickens edition and was the last edition to be corrected by the author himself. The Nonesuch edition contains full-color illustrations selected by Dickens himself, by artists including Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"), George Cruikshank, John Leech, Robert Seymour, and George Cattermole.

The Nonesuch Dickens reproduces the original elegance of these beautiful editions. Books are printed on natural cream-shade high quality stock, quarter bound in bonded leather with cloth sides, include a ribbon marker, and feature special printed endpapers. Each volume is wrapped in a protective, clear acetate jacket.

The books are available as individual volumes, or as sets. The six-volume set contains Oliver Twist, Bleak House, Christmas Books, Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, and Great Expectations together with Hard Times. The three-volume set contains A Tale of Two Cities, Little Dorrit, and The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit.

About the Author
The Nonesuch Press was founded by Francis Meynell in 1923 and produced some of the most elegant books published in the first half of the twentieth century. The Nonesuch Dickens was limited to 877 sets and each set sold for fifty-six guineas, the equivalent of roughly $5,000 today.

Customer Reviews

Very moving stories and a great publishing house
Dickens' Christmas Books might be some of his most overlooked works, except for, of course, "A Christmas Carol." But in these stories he has captured the season's spirits of reflection and faith better than any other work I've read. "A Christmas Carol" is an acknowledged masterpiece; "The Chimes" and "The Battle of Life" are particularly moving as well. Four of these five stories bring me to tears by their ends.

I started in 1991 to read one story per year in the published sequence, (for Christmas 2000, I'm reading The Haunted Man again) and this has made December and its holidays more enjoyable and meaningful for me. I hope to continue the cycle and look forward to reading "this year's Christmas story" aloud to my family as my kids grow up.

Oxford Press/World's Classics publishes excellent quality paperbacks, and they do justice here to Dickens' powerful works. I highly recommend this work (and especially this publisher) to anyone; if you're looking for "A Christmas Carol", get this volume of all the Christmas Stories and enjoy even more of Dickens' masterful ability to weave the human condition into such moving short stories.

Review of the Nonesuch Dickens edition
My review here is not of the novel, but rather of the Nonesuch edition of Dickens' classic. The book itself is a facsimile edition of the 1937 Nonesuch Dickens, and is published by Barnes and Noble. The book itself is in quality hardback. "The Christmas Books" Nonesuch edition has the spine bound in leather and the rest of the cover is cloth-bound [the color is red].The dust jacket is clear quality plastic. The paper quality is of good stock and is cream in color.

The text is set in Martin's Type and the etchings were printed and hand-colored by A. Alexander and Sons Ltd. This is a beautiful and affordable classic [I own six of them and plan to get the rest] and the Nonesuch Dickens Classics will enhance any collector's library.