# Is "The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home" by Charles Dickens a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home by Charles Dickens (Bradbury and Evans, London, 1846) is identified by: First edition, third of the five Christmas Books; title-page dated 1846 but published 20 December 1845 and sold out before the new year. The census claim is correct and needs no correction: Bradbury and Evans, London, title dated 1846, issued December 1845, and it is indeed the third of the five Christmas Books, completing the set with The Haunted Man alongside A Christmas Carol, The Chimes and The Battle of Life.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, third of the five Christmas Books; title-page dated 1846 but published 20 December 1845 and sold out before the new year
- Imprint reads Bradbury and Evans FOR THE AUTHOR. Collation runs [viii], 174, [2] advertisements
- Fourteen illustrations by John Leech, Richard Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield, Daniel Maclise and Edwin Landseer; the engraved frontispiece and additional pictorial title are after Maclise, engraved by John Thompson and G. Dalziel, with original tissue guards
- Publisher's binding is red ribbed cloth, covers blind-decorated, the upper cover with a pictorial gilt fireplace design, spine lettered and ornamented in gilt, pale yellow-coated endpapers, all edges gilt (Sotheby's describes the cloth as vertically ribbed, Jarndyce as horizontal-grained - the grain description is not settled, the color is)
- The issue point is the terminal Oliver Twist advertisement leaf: FIRST state has the italic headline set in TWO lines
- SECOND state (the second issue) has that headline re-set to occupy THREE lines
- Publisher imprint reads Bradbury and Evans, London

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Charles Dickens |
| Publisher | Bradbury and Evans, London |
| Year | 1846 |
| True first | American edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition, third of the five Christmas Books; title-page dated 1846 but published 20 December 1845 and sold out before the new year |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition, third of the five Christmas Books; title-page dated 1846 but published 20 December 1845 and sold out before the new year. Imprint reads Bradbury and Evans FOR THE AUTHOR. Collation runs [viii], 174, [2] advertisements. Fourteen illustrations by John Leech, Richard Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield, Daniel Maclise and Edwin Landseer; the engraved frontispiece and additional pictorial title are after Maclise, engraved by John Thompson and G. Dalziel, with original tissue guards. Publisher's binding is red ribbed cloth, covers blind-decorated, the upper cover with a pictorial gilt fireplace design, spine lettered and ornamented in gilt, pale yellow-coated endpapers, all edges gilt (Sotheby's describes the cloth as vertically ribbed, Jarndyce as horizontal-grained - the grain description is not settled, the color is). The issue point is the terminal Oliver Twist advertisement leaf: FIRST state has the italic headline set in TWO lines; SECOND state (the second issue) has that headline re-set to occupy THREE lines. Referenced as Smith II:6. No dust jacket was issued at this date.

## Is this the true first?
The census claim is correct and needs no correction: Bradbury and Evans, London, title dated 1846, issued December 1845, and it is indeed the third of the five Christmas Books, completing the set with The Haunted Man alongside A Christmas Carol, The Chimes and The Battle of Life. Note only that the imprint is 'for the author' - Dickens retained the publishing risk on the Christmas Books - and that the full title is 'The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home'. No American or other edition holds precedence over the London issue; the 1845/1846 date discrepancy is a post-dated title-page, not a precedence question.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue at this date. The live trap is the advertisement-leaf state: dealers routinely offer second-issue copies (three-line italic headline) as plain 'first edition' - correct as to edition, but the second issue, and Jarndyce catalogs such copies explicitly as 'FIRST EDITION, 2nd issue'. Copies lacking the terminal advertisement leaf altogether cannot be placed by this point. The book went through many editions within its first year (dealers cite twenty-two), and the 1886 'new edition' and later reprints are commonly confused with the 1846-dated first.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home* by Charles Dickens a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-cricket-on-the-hearth-a-fairy-tale-of-home
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.