Complete Christmas Numbers of Both Household Words & All the Year Round by Charles Dickens - 1867

London: Bradbury and Evans , Chapman and Hall, 1867. First. Very Good. Household Words was an English weekly magazine edited by Charles Dickens in the 1850s It took its name from the line in Shakespeare′s Henry V: ″Familiar in his mouth as household words″ It was published every Saturday from March 1850 to May 1859 Each number cost a mere tuppence, thereby ensuring a wide readership The publication′s first edition carried a section covering the paper′s principles, entitled ″A Preliminary Word″:″We aspire to live in the Household affections, and to be numbered among the Household thoughts, of our readers We hope to be the comrade and friend of many thousands of people, of both sexes, and of all ages and conditions, on whose faces we may never look We seek to bring to innumerable homes, from the stirring world around us, the knowledge of many social wonders, good and evil, that are not calculated to render any of us less ardently persevering in ourselves, less faithful in the progress of mankind, less thankful for the privilege of living in this summer‐dawn of time″â€" Charles Dickens
Theoretically, the paper championed the cause of the poor and working classes, but in fact it addressed itself almost exclusively to the middle class Only the name of Dickens, the journal′s ″conductor″, appeared; articles were unsigned (although authors of serialized novels were identified) and, in spite of its regularly featuring an ″advertiser″, the paper was un‐illustrated

In 1859, Dickens had a dispute with Bradbury and Evans, the publisher of Household Words, which led him to realize that he was at the publisher's whim, and to decide that he would create a new weekly magazine that he would own and control entirely So, in 1859, Dickens founded All the Year Round,
Both magazines produced a special Christmas number each year Nine were published with each of the two magazines, 18 in all These volumes have collected the complete run of Christmas numers for both Household Words 1850‐1858, and All the Year Round 1859-1867 The latter has some of the original wrappers bound‐in, as well as an interesting little catalog There were no wrappers used for Household Words [Eckel]

These are in very good condition, with some age/wear indications, including shelfwear and rubbing, with minor loss to high points and spines The bindings and text blocks are sound Text is clear and legible through mild/moderate age toning/foxing There are small stamped or written numbers to the title pages

Provenance:
These volumes are from a private estate library and are uniformly‐bound in fancy three‐quarter crimson leather with deep red marbled paper for endpapers and over the balance of the boards The materials used for the bindings date the binding work to around 1890, and a bookplate is present on the front pastedowns, belonging to Julius Franke (1868‐1936) Franke was a prominent New York architect, whose design work included the Wurlitzer Building It seems likely that he commissioned these bindings.