THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. A Fairy Tale of Home by Dickens, Charles - 1846

London: Bradbury and Evans, 1846. Small octavo. [6],174 pages, [2] pages ads. Complete with frontispiece and engraved extra title page. Twelve woodcut illustrations in the text. Original pictorial red ribbed cloth, stamped in gold on the spine and front cover, with blind decorative borders on both covers, and all edges gilt. [17.1 cm.] Tiny chip to outer layer of cloth at head of spine and minor tear to head of rear hinge, else a very good copy. Minor wear to extremities; spine slightly cocked, as usual; some light soiling to cloth. A few tiny marginal spots, one marginal smudge, otherwise internally clean, with no names or markings anywhere in the book. FIRST EDITION. Second state of the ad leaf, with the heading: "New Edition of Oliver Twist." Dickens' third Christmas book. "The book was immensely popular, doubling the circulation of its predecessors. In 1847, its publishers were announcing the twenty-second edition of 'The Cricket,' at the same time they were issuing the tenth edition of 'The Carol,' and the twelfth of 'The Chimes'." --Eckell, pp. 119-120. The story was also a theatrical success. Indeed, "no fewer than seventeen different adaptations of The Cricket on the Hearth appeared on the London stage within a month of the book's publication (December 1845)." --Oxford DNB. Smith II, 6.