CHARLES DICKENS: A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HIS FIRST AMERICAN EDITIONS, THE CHRISTMAS BOOKS AND SELECTED SECONDARY WORKS

New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press, 2019. Hardback with dust jacket. 8.125 x 10.75 inches. Hardback with dust jacket. 160 pages. "This meticulously researched volume untangles the complicated and confusing history of American first editions of Dickens. It will be of interest to all students of Dickens, and invaluable for specialists. ... Highly recommended."

- J. D. Vann, Choice



This bibliography traces the history of Charles Dickens's Christmas books and other works published in America during his lifetime. Meticulously researched and presented, it includes data never before published. Original editions are identified and fully described, and each entry contains photographs of bindings and title pages, notes, related quotes or contemporary commentary, and dates of publication. This study enhances our knowledge of an important aspect of the Dickens oeuvre, and it should prove an essential reference book for all rare book libraries and institutions, book collectors, book dealers, and students of Dickens's literature.



The present work serves as a companion to the author's earlier work: Charles Dickens: A Bibliography of His First American Editions, 1836-1870. The Novels with Sketches by Boz. (Calabasas, CA: David Brass Rare Books, (2012), also available from Oak Knoll. That significant work identifies the first and early American editions of Charles Dickens's novels and traces their publishing history, including various impressions and sub-editions, from 1836 to 1870, the year of Dickens's death.



Both bibliographies were compiled from firsthand examinations of the books at major libraries and institutions throughout the country, in private collections, and in the possession of several rare book dealers. Together, they are an indispensable source of information on Dickens's American editions.



Walter E. Smith is a longtime collector of first editions of Victorian prose fiction, and he has been a Lecturer on aspects of his research in that field at several colleges in California. He donated a large collection of editions by Elizabeth C. Gaskell to the Gaskell House in Manchester, England, where the books are on permanent display, and much of his correspondence with the late English book collector and scholar John Geoffrey Sharps is housed in the John Rylands Library in that city. He has written numerous articles and reviews, compiled several bibliographies, and written three books of poetry.