What is a First Edition of A Christmas Carol Worth?

atkins-bookshelf-booksWhen Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol on December 19, 1843, he wanted to make sure the book was affordable. The first printing of 6,000 copies, each book priced at a mere 5 shillings (about $2 in 1800s currency; about $25 in today’s currency) was sold out by Christmas eve. Dickens received his allotment of presentation copies on December 17, and immediately sent inscribed copies to his close friends and colleagues; he ran out of his copies 5 days later. Dickens’s publisher, Chapman and Hall, quickly printed a second and third edition, bringing the total of books sold to 9,000 by the end of the year — a remarkable achievement in Victorian England. Over the next few years, the book went through a total of 24 printings of that particular edition.

For almost two centuries, Dickens’s “ghostly little story” about redemption and charity has grown in our hearts — and just as significant, has grown in value exponentially. As bibliophiles and antiquarian booksellers know, there are many factors that contribute to a book’s value — condition, uniqueness, beauty, quality of binding, history, and inscription and/or signature. The first edition of A Christmas Carol (or The Carol, as it is known to collectors of Dickens’s works) has benefited from all these factors, and hence has consistently risen in value. A true first edition (from the first printing) is generally worth from $18,000 to $45,000. Any edition that was masterfully bound in fine leather and jewels by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, the premier bookbinders in London since 1901, is sure to fetch more than $3o,000. The value of The Carol skyrockets when you consider the very rare inscribed presentation editions (the ones that Dickens gave to his friends) that range from $50,000 to $280,000! Truly a staggering valuation that would certainly bring a smile to any Scrooge.

A review of auction prices within the last two decades shows how quickly the value of A Christmas Carol has appreciated in modern times. A presentation copy inscribed to poet Thomas Hood was sold at auction in 1997 for $50,000. Just one year later, another presentation copy, this one inscribed to writer and poet Walter Landor, sold for $160,000. The most valuable copy, however, was a presentation copy inscribed to William Macready, an actor and close friend of Dickens, dated January 1, 1844 that was sold by Sotheby’s auction house for $282,408 in 2010. Ironically, A Christmas Carol was not as profitable as Dickens had hoped due to its high cost of production. Certainly, Dickens could never have imagined that his modestly-priced Christmas story would become of the most precious and sought-after books in literature — making him in the end, to use Scrooge’s phrase, “a good man of business.”

Read related posts: A Christmas Carol by the Numbers
The Most Expensive Book in the World
The Most Expensive American Book
The Most Expensive Books Sold in 2012
Words Invented by Dickens
The Atkins Bookshelf Literary Christmas Price Index: 2017

For further reading: The Annotated Christmas Carol by Michael Patrick Hearn, Norton (2004)
rarebooksdigest.com/2011/12/22/charles-dickens-rare-book-a-christmas-carol/
The Cinderella of the Arts: A short History of Sangorski & Sutcliffe by Rob Shepherd


2 responses to “What is a First Edition of A Christmas Carol Worth?

  • Stephanie Corbin

    I have a very old copy of the Christmas Carol published by barse & Hopkins New York. It soft green leather with gold embossed ornaments like cover with scalloped like edges. 145 pages and Dickens picture on the inside of book. Could you please tell me the value of this and where I might sell it.

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