Christmas Books: Books about Christmas that are of interest to collectors.

There have been many books written and published about and for Christmas. Here are a few of my personal favourites, with a brief commentary on them and some background on Charles Dickens and Christmas.

Charles Dickens is often credited with the invention of  "The Traditional Christmas", but most who have looked at this issue would agree that Dickens is mainly responsible for the general popularity of the notion of the "Traditional English Christmas". The combination of the family-centered celebration of Christmas, together with fun, feasting, drinking and above all a sense of Goodwill Towards All Men has come to epitomise the Dickensian Christmas. But where did all this come from and how did Dickens know about it?

One interesting fact is that a book was published in London in 1836 called The Book of Christmas by Thomas K Hervey. The book, which was a collection of English Christmas customs, was illustrated by Robert Seymour. 

The Book of Christmas 1836

We know that Charles Dickens knew Robert Seymour, as in 1836, that same year, Dickens had been hired by the publishers Chapman and Hall to provide the text for a series of sporting illustrations to be drawn by Seymour. This project eventually became The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, which propelled Dickens from obscurity to instant fame. Sadly, Seymour only provided the first few illustrations for the book, as he committed suicide soon after the start of Pickwick. Some, rather unkindly, have suggested that it might have been working with Dickens that drove him to his sad fate! 

A Christmas Carol 1843

Although there are two memorable Christmas "episodes" in Pickwick, the great Dickens Christmas book was certainly A Christmas Carol, published by Chapman and Hall in December 1843. The genesis of the book was the rather poor sales of the serial parts of Martin Chuzzlewit, in the middle of 1843, which was causing some distress to Dickens and his publisher. After threats to reduce Dickens' income in light of the poor sales, he was encouraged to produce a successful book for the Christmas market of 1843. After much walking and worrying, it was probably a visit in early October to Dickens' older sister Fanny in Manchester, where she lived in fairly straitened circumstances with her husband and crippled son Fred, that gave Dickens the inspiration for A Christmas Carol. He started writing the book in mid October and presented the finished manuscript to his publisher on December 2nd. The first edition of  6000 copies was published on 19th December and was sold out in four days at 5 shillings each. The manuscript of A Christmas Carol has survived and is in the Pierpoint Morgan Library in New York. The library published a fine facsimile of the manuscript in 1993, which allows you to read the text in Dickens' handwriting, with all of his erasures, amendments and edits, side by side with the printed text.

Facsimile of the first page of the manuscript of A Christmas Carol 1943

A first edition of A Christmas Carol costs $10,000 - $25,000 today. Ironically, Dickens was disappointed in the financial return that he got from A Christmas Carol . His publishers had forced him to take the financial risk with the publication, but because Dickens had insisted on high-quality end-papers, a high-quality binding, and above all, four hand coloured lithographs as illustrations, and a coloured title page, the production costs of the book consumed most of the earnings, so that Dickens only made a few hundred pounds from the project, rather than the thousands that he had expected. This was in spite of the fact that A Christmas Carol sold out twelve editions before Christmas 1844. Never again in his lifetime did Dickens publish a book which contained coloured illustrations. 

Fortunately for the book collector with a modest budget, a nice facsimile edition of the first edition of A Christmas Carol was published by Chapman and Hall in 1926. This can still be found for purchase for a reasonably low sum, often below $100.

Dickens published four more Christmas books, but none of them are thought to be comparable to A Christmas Carol in quality, and they certainly have not been as popular with the general reader. Here they are in the original bindings.

The Chimes 1844

The Cricket on the Hearth 1845

The Haunted Man 1848

The Battle of Life 1846

The five Christmas Books of Charles Dickens have been published together many times as a collection in a single volume, starting with the first collected edition published in 1852 by Chapman and Hall in a rather undistinguished pale green blind stamped cloth binding. A much more attractive edition is the one published by Chapman and Hall in 1869 shown below, which was the last edition of the collected Christmas Books that was published in Dickens' lifetime. As in most of combined editions of the Christmas Books, the illustrations are all printed without colour, presumably to contain the high costs of production which beset the early editions of A Christmas Carol.

Christmas Books by Charles Dickens Chapman and Hall 1869

 Many other fine editions of A Christmas Carol have been published with new illustrations by many of the greatest book illustrators. Among my favourites are those illustrated by Arthur Rackham, arguably the doyen of English book illustrators; the edition illustrated by Harold Copping for the Religious Tract Society, the quirky edition illustrated by Ronald Searle in 1961 and the fine edition illustrated by Michael Forman for the Folio Society in 2003.

Arthur Rackham 1915

Michael Foreman 2003

Harold Copping 1920

Searle's Scrooge and Marley's ghost

Ronald Searle 1961

More recently, Cedric Dickens, Charles Dickens grandson, published Christmas with Dickens in 1993 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of A Christmas Carol. Cedric tells the reader exactly how to organise a Dickensian Christmas celebration. He tells the reader how to serve a traditional Christmas dinner, with traditional Christmas drinks, interspersed with five selected readings from A Christmas Carol. My copy formally belonged to the wife of an Australian High Commissioner to London, and is signed by Cedric who praises the successful Dickensian Christmas Dinner that she held, based on the book!

Christmas with Dickens, 1993

Charles Dickens was by no means the first author to look back nostalgically at the traditional English Christmas. The American author Washington Irving wrote several short pieces describing various scenes from Christmas in England. These were based on his personal experience of spending Christmas in a fine old country house close to Birmingham in Warwickshire. These writings first appeared in Washington Irving's The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., which was first published in installments during 1819 and 1820. The most pleasing edition of these sketches about Christmas in England is Old Christmas, which was published by Macmillan in 1876, and is gloriously illustrated by Randolph Caldecott. This book was intended to be a Christmas present, and it still makes a fine seasonal gift. In 1877, Bracebridge Hall, a companion volume of Irving's sketches in the same setting was published by Macmillan, also featuring wonderful illustrations by Randolph Caldecott. These two books are shown below in their original bindings.

Old Christmas, 1876 and Bracebridge Hall 1877

Christmas is of course a major religious festival, and unsurprisingly, many books have appeared telling the story of the birth of Christ. My favourite of these is The Christmas Story, which was published by the BBC in 1968. The text of the book has been taken directly from the New Testament in a form simplified for children. However, the real appeal of the book is in the great illustrations by Charles Keeping. Keeping's illustrations were commissioned by the BBC to accompany the text for a filmed version of the book that was shown on the popular children's program Blue Peter.

A Christmas Story, 1968

For those of us who live in Australia, the greatest conundrum about Christmas is how to celebrate it in what is often the sweltering heat of the southern hemisphere summer. Not very much snow to be seen at all! The best book that I know which tackles this is Bush Christmas, a book that was published in 1983 to accompany the remaking of a film, Bush Christmas, that had first been released in 1947. The original film had starred the immortal Australian character actor Chips Rafferty, and concerned the theft of a champion horse from a family, and told how the horse was recovered and the thieves captured by the courage and ingenuity of a group of children. The 1983 remake tells the same story and features a child actor in her first film, the fourteen year old Nicole Kidman! 

Bush Christmas, 1983

The title of the film is drawn from the poem, A Bush Christmas, by C J Dennis, first published in the Melbourne Herald newspaper in December 1931. The book prints the text of Dennis' poem and also has collected together many early accounts of Christmas in the heat and hardship of 19th century Australia, as well as presenting bush ballads about Christmas, as sung by The Bushwackers, a popular band of the 1970s and 1980s in Australia.

Travel writing is often published in the form of a compendium of traveller's tales. My favourite Christmas version of this genre is A Traveller's Christmas, a fine collection of short pieces about Christmas and travel selected by Sue Bradbury and published in 2006 by The Folio Society in a typically high-quality production that features illustrations by Paul Slater. There are many examples from writers of many languages and different cultures, largely around the theme of Christmas spent far from home. My favourite accounts are those of Kipling in India and Robert Falcon Scott in Antarctica, along with accounts from mariners rounding Cape Horn and several from battlefields and war-ravaged lands. 

A Traveller's Christmas,  2006

The English book illustrator, Raymond Briggs has produced many fine books over the last fifty years. Four of them have a particular relevance to Christmas. These are The Christmas Book by James Reeves (1968), Father Christmas (1973), Father Christmas Goes on Holiday (1975) and The Snowman (1978). These latter three titles are all authored and illustrated by Briggs, although it should be noted that The Snowman is wordless. Briggs' Father Christmas is a rather grumpy old man but as the story unfolds, his grumpiness becomes increasingly appealing. The original story of The Snowman in the book does not feature Father Christmas, but the filmed version of 1982 does include an encounter with Father Christmas. Both Father Christmas and The Snowman have won multiple awards.

Father Christmas 1973

The Snowman 2013 Puffin edition

I though I would finish with two satires on Christmas. The first is Hogfather by the late and very lamented Sir Terry Pratchett. This is his 20th novel in the Discworld series, published in 1996, and tells a tale of the disappearance of The Hogfather (Father Christmas) at Hogswatch (Christmas), due to the plotting of an assassin, and how the Hogfather's duties are taken up by Death, before the situation is resolved by Death's granddaughter. I know that this is a great oversimplification of the plot... so go and read the book. If you prefer films, the BBC version of 2006 features the late Ian Richardson as the VOICE OF DEATH (Pratchett fans will understand the capitalisation.)

Hogfather, 1996

My final choice is a children's book, but is it? How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr Seuss, the pseudonym of Theodor Geisel, was published in New York by Random House in 1957 and like Dickens' A Christmas Carol, has never been out of print. The story is presented as a simple picture book, in which the tale is told of a bad character, the Grinch, who tries to stop Christmas by stealing things related to Christmas. On another level, the book is really Geisel's protest about the over-exploitation of Christmas by commercial interests. Geisel liked the Grinch so much that his car number plate was GRINCH.

Many editions of this book have been published during the last sixty years. Here are three editions, with the original of 1957 on the left, a Jim Carrey film tie-in version from 2000 in the centre, and a more recent edition on the right.

Ironically, many people today will know the story due to the various commercial film, TV and recorded sound versions that have been made. 

A nice trivia question for you all could be "What do Boris Karloff, Jim Carrey, Zero Mostel, Walter Matthau and Benedict Cumberbatch have in common?" 

Answer... they have all performed the voice of the Grinch.

Happy Christmas reading!

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Here is a list of the books mentioned in this Blog post.

The Book of Christmas by Thomas K Hervey, William Spooner, London, 1836

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

            First edition, Chapman and Hall 1843

            Facsimile edition, Chapman and Hall, 1926,

            Manuscript Facsimile, Pierpoint Morgan Library, 1993

            Editions of A Christmas Carol with illustrations by

Arthur Rackham, Heinemann, 1915,

Harold Copping, Religious Tract Society, 1920

Ronald Searle, Perpetua, 1961

Michael Forman, Folio Society, 2003

Christmas with Dickens by Cedric Dickens, The Belvedere Press, 1993

The Chimes by Charles Dickens, Chapman and Hall, 1844

The Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens, Bradbury and Evans, 1845

The Battle of Life by Charles Dickens, Bradbury and Evans, 1846

The Haunted Man and The Ghost's Bargain by Charles Dickens, Bradbury and Evans, 1848

Christmas Books by Charles Dickens, Chapman and Hall, 1869

           

Old Christmas by Washington Irving, Macmillan 1876, illustrated by Randolph Caldecott

Bracebridge Hall by Washington Irving, Macmillan 1877, illustrated by Randolph Caldecott

                       

The Christmas Story illustrated by Charles Keeping, BBC, 1968

                  

Bush Christmas edited by Dobe Newton, Tombola publishing, 1983

        

A Traveller’s Christmas, compiled by Sue Bradbury, Folio Society, 2006

Father Christmas by Raymond Briggs, Hamish Hamilton, 1973

The Snowman by Raymond Briggs, Puffin 35th anniversary edition, 2013

Hogfather by (Sir) Terry Pratchett, Gollancz, 1996

            

How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr Seuss (Theodor Geisel), Random House 1957

            

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Vale Philip Kerr 1956 - 2018

Philip Kerr: Creator of Bernie Gunther

Very sad news this weekend, with the announcement of the death of Philip Kerr on Friday 23rd Mach 2018. Starting from a career in advertising, Philip Kerr will be long remembered for his wonderful series of books featuring Bernie Gunther, a hard-bitten, essentially moral, German policeman; Gunther is not without his own weaknesses and demons, but when faced with moral choices, always seems to make the right choice, all-be-it often with a very hard edge.

The twelve book series started in 1989 with "March Violets", which is written in a very punchy, hard-boiled style, owing much to Hammett and Chandler, but set in a Germany of 1936, where the Nazi regime is consolidating its power and preparing for war. Bernie investigates the murders of family members of a rich German mandarin of industry, and leads us through the dark and dangerous world of pre-war Berlin, ending up in the Dachau concentration camp.

The next two books, "The Pale Criminal", published in 1990, and "A German Requiem", 1991, continue in a similar vein and style, with stories set in Berlin in 1938 and Vienna in 1947 respectively. These first three novellas were re-published together by Penguin in 1993 under the title "Berlin Noir".

The fourth book in the series, "The One from the Other", did not appear until 2006. It is set in Munich in 1949, and is set in the world of post war former Nazis and all the recriminations found in a defeated nation. Gunther is now a private detective looking for a former Nazi war criminal on behalf of his wife. 15 years on, Kerr's style has become more mature and he has found his own authentic voice, not having to rely on the hard-boiled tricks of the first three stories.

The remaining eight books, which appeared between 2008 , "A Quiet Flame", and 2017 "Prussian Blue" explore Gunther's career between 1934 and 1956, with several involving a flash-back flash-forward structure, which is managed very smoothly, are all written in the mature late style and are an absolute joy to read.

I have read all of the Bernie Gunther books twice, both in the order in which they were published, and in the chronological order, which runs from book 6 "If the Dead Rise Not", set in 1934 to book 11, "The Other Side of Silence", which is set in 1956. My enjoyment was not dependent on the order of reading, but I do suggest that the first three early titles should perhaps be read first, as the stylistic change may jar somewhat.

The only bright news about Bernie Gunther is there is one final book, "Greeks Bearing Gifts" which is due out on April 3rd 2018. I have already ordered my copy and will read it with a mixture of pleasure and sadness.

Vale Philip Kerr. You will be sorely missed.

The Bernie Gunther Series

 1. March Violets 1989

 2. The Pale Criminal 1990

 3. A German Requiem 1991

 4. The One From the Other 2006

 5. A Quiet Flame 2008

 6. If the Dead Rise Not  2009

 7. Field Grey 2010

 8. Prague Fatal 2011

 9. A Man Without Breath 2013

10. The Lady From Zagreb 2015

11. The Other Side of Silence 2016

12. Prussian Blue 2017

13. Greeks Bearing Gifts 2018

1959 Psycho: Robert Bloch

Psycho now tends to mean the famous film by Alfred Hitchcock made in 1960 with Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh. The famous “murder in the shower” scene with the electrifying music of Bernard Herrmann remains an iconic series of images in popular culture.

The film is based on the book Psycho by Robert Bloch (1917-1994), which was published in New York by Simon and Schuster in 1959 and in London by Robert Hale in 1960. Block had a long history of writing tales with supernatural content and was part of the circle of H.P. Lovecraft and a regular contributor to Weird Tales. He wrote hundreds of stories and more than 30 novels during a long career which started in 1935. Late in his life he wrote The Jekyll Legacy, a sequel to Stephenson’s famous novel.

First editions of Psycho are becoming increasingly hard to find. Collectors would be happy with either the American or English first edition. The New York edition in very good condition in dust wrapper will cost around $1000; the London edition about half that price. Both of these books are shown below.

An American first edition signed by Janet Leigh can be had for $5000.

        New York edition, 1959                                                            London edition, 1960

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1938 Rebecca: Daphne du Maurier

Dame Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989) was a best-selling author of romantic and macabre stories, novels and plays. Many of her best works, particularly those with a Gothic inspiration, have been the subject of successful films, such as Jamaica Inn, The Birds, Don’t Look Now and most famously Rebecca.

Rebecca was du Maurier’s most successful book, being reprinted multiple times and selling 3 million copies by 1970. It starts with one of the most famous first lines in literature. “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” The line is spoken by the “second Mrs de Winter, the narrator of the story, whose given name is never revealed. The book contains the classic gothic character, Mrs. Danvers the housekeeper of Manderley, and has many close parallels to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. The Alfred Hitchcock film version (1940) went a long way to establishing the enduring fame of Rebecca.

There are thousands of copies of the many impressions of the early English editions of Rebecca published by Gollancz in the standard house yellow dust wrapper. The true first impression of the first edition was 20,000 copies. It is shown below and is the one that collectors want.

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1911 The Phantom of the Opera: Gaston Leroux

1911 The Phantom of the Opera: Gaston Leroux

The Phantom of the Opera was first published in French as Le Fantome de l’Opera as a serial in the magazine Le Gaulois from 1909 to 1910. It first appeared as a book in March 1910 under the same title, published in Paris by Pierre Lafitte. The story was based on some of the myths and stories associated with the Opera Garnier in Paris and a plot element from Carl Maria von Weber’s production in Paris of his best-known opera Die Freischutz.

Gaston Leroux (1868-1927) wrote more than sixty novels, but is now only remembered for the Phantom, largely because of the many stage and film versions that it has inspired, culminating in the now immortal musical version of Andre Lloyd Webber in 1986.

The first edition in English appeared in 1911, published in New York by The Bobbs-Merrill Company, with a coloured frontispiece and four double page folding coloured plates. This is the edition that most English-speaking collectors want to find. The dust wrapper is famously rare and most copies don’t have the dust wrapper present. 

Here it is the book and its wrapper.

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1902 The Hound of the Baskervilles: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

1902 The Hound of the Baskervilles: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s (1859-1930) most famous creation, Sherlock Holmes, mostly appeared as the hero of short stories that were first published in The Strand Magazine, before being published as collected stories by the magazine’s publisher George Newnes. All of these are highly collectible, but the real prize for the book collector are the first editions of the four Sherlock Holmes novels; A Study in Scarlet (1887), The Sign of Four (1890), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) and The Valley of Fear (1915).

The Hound of the Baskervilles is clearly in the Gothic tradition, with the misty, boggy Dartmoor setting, the tales of a supernatural hound, a cursed family, a dreadful face hinting at a ghastly death, and the Gothic Baskerville Hall. Doyle himself described the story as a “Victorian Creeper”.

 The story first appeared in serialised form in 1901-1902 in The Strand Magazine, accompanied by the very apt illustrations by Sidney Paget. The first book form, published by Newnes in 1902 is the most elegantly bound of all four of the Holmes Novels and is highly desirable. The top board, designed by Alfred Garth Jones, is shown below.

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1897 Dracula: Bram Stoker

1897 Dracula: Bram Stoker

Abraham “Bram” Stoker (1847-1912) was an Irish writer and theatrical manager, who spent most of his working life as the theatre manager and friend of the great actor Sir Henry Irving.

Stoker worked for about ten years to produce his most famous work, Dracula in 1897.

Part of the inspiration for Dracula came from a family holiday that Stoker spent at Whitby in Yorkshire in 1890, together with some childhood memories of seeing dessicated corpses in the crypt of a Dublin church. The result was Dracula, published by Constable in 1897 in a striking yellow cloth binding with blood red text. His publisher felt that the original text was a little too long and encouraged Stoker to edit his work to produce an abridged edition. This was published by Constable in 1901, in the most collectible dust wrapper of the 20^th century.

The book has spawned more films and more imitators than any other book of the 19^th or 20^th centuries. Images from the 1922 silent film Nosferatu with Max Schreck as Count Orlok and the 1931 film of Dracula starring Bela Lugosi in the title role have become modern icons.

The 1897 first English edition cover from 1897 and the famous dust wrapper from the abridged version of 1901 are shown below. Both were published by Archibald Constable.

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1894 Trilby: George du Maurier

1894 Trilby: George du Maurier

George du Maurier (1834-1896) was a Punch cartoonist and an occasional author. He was also the father of the actor Gerald du Maurier, grandfather of the author Daphne du Maurier and grandfather of the five Llewellyn brothers who inspired Peter Pan.

He was famous during his lifetime for his cartoons in Punch which gently mocked British society. His most famous cartoon was The Curate’s Egg, which introduced that phrase into the English language. He is best known today as the author of Trilby, a story which was initially serialised in Harpers Magazine in 1894, before appearing in book form in 1895.

It tells the story of an Irish girl, Trilby O’Ferrall, who worked as an artists model in the bohemian art world of Paris in the 1860s, and particularly gained its fame for the hypnotic relationship between the tone-deaf Trilby and her manipulative singing coach, Svengali. It has given us the words “Triby”, for the hat that Trilby wore, and “Svengali”, for a malevolent, dominant man. It also is the first instance of the phrase “in the altogether” meaning naked.

Generally speaking, the first appearance of a novel in parts or in a magazine the most collectaible form of that work. However, in this instance, most collectors would prefer the 1895 book edition to the magazine parts. My copy of the first English edition of 1895 is shown below.

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1891 The Picture of Dorian Gray: Oscar Wilde

1891 The Picture of Dorian Gray: Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde’s famous story of a portrait which ages while its human subject stays young, was first published in the July 1890 issue of Lippincott’s Magazine. The story was regarded as quite immoral by many at the time; indeed, the editor of Lippincott’s Magazine, J. M. Stoddart, removed about 500 words from Wilde’s original manuscript, without the author’s permission, because he held it to be indecent due to its homoerotic content. 

The first edition in book form followed in 1891, and because of the widely-voiced criticism of the initial version, Wilde wrote a preface to the book defending his point of view, although he did also agree to edit out a few of the more contentious passages. A complete uncensored version, in which all Stoddart’s excisions and Wilde’s enforced additional amendments have been reversed, was not published until 2011 by the Belknap Press.

The 1890 magazine form of the novella is famously scarce and the book form is much more likely to be accessible to the keen collector. Lippincott’s Magazine cover for July 1890 is shown below.

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1886 The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: Robert Louis Stevenson

1886 The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) had already made his name with the adventure story Treasure Island, published in 1883. While asked about the inspiration for this, his famous macabre story of good and evil, he claimed to have conceived The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in a dream. According to his family, he wrote the first draft in a frenzy in 3 to 4 days. He then spent about a week revising his manuscript for the publisher.

The story was a sensation from its first publication in the first week of January 1886 in both Britain and the USA. It sold more than 40,000 copies in the first six months of that year and has never been out of print. For many readers, it represents a fundamental duality in the make up of all people; an internal struggle between good and evil. The phrase “Jekyll and Hyde” quickly entered the language to express differences in the moral behaviour of individuals from one situation to the next. More than 100 film and dramatic versions of the story have been produced.

For any collector, the first issues of the English or American editions, in their paper wrappers are the most desirable forms, but these are exceedingly rare. The hardback book form which first appeared later in January 1886 is also highly desirable. A picture of my copy of that first edition of the hardback version of the book on the right is shown below alongside the very rare paperback edition on the left. Both were published by Longmans Green and Co. in January 1886.

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