DICKENS, CHARLES. The Adventures of Oliver Twist [bound with] Christmas Books. London: Chapman and Hall, 193 Piccadilly, 1865–1866.

An appealing 19th-century sammelband bringing together two lifetime Chapman and Hall editions of major works by Charles Dickens. The volume opens with The Adventures of Oliver Twist, dated 1865, with frontispiece by George Cruikshank, and is bound together with Dickens’s Christmas Books, dated 1866, containing all five of his celebrated Christmas novellas: A Christmas Carol, The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, and The Haunted Man.

Bound in contemporary half calf over textured cloth boards, with calf corners, gilt rules to the spine, and contrasting morocco title label lettered “Oliver Twist” in gilt. All edges colored. Ownership signature “Dickinson” to front blank.

Binding rubbed and worn, with scuffing and surface loss to the leather, wear to corners and spine extremities. Internally very good. Strong hinges and a sound text block. Contents generally clean and well preserved, with occasional light foxing and age-related spotting. The Cruikshank frontispiece to Oliver Twist and frontispiece to Christmas Books are both present.

A particularly interesting contemporary assemblage of two Dickens titles issued only a year apart, combining Oliver Twist with the complete Christmas Books—including A Christmas Carol—in a single period-bound volume.