1860 Two Dickens Works "Great Expectations" & Christmas Story, Trinity Dec 29

🗞️ HARPER'S WEEKLY · December 29, 1860
Complete Issue · New York

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A historically rich closing issue of the 1860 run — two Charles Dickens works in a single issue, including a nearly six-page Christmas story "A Message from the Sea" and a continuing Great Expectations installment; Christmas at Trinity Church; and a family Christmas dinner on the front page. Published nine days after South Carolina's secession, this warm Christmas issue carries the poignant weight of the last holiday before the Civil War — the final Harper's Weekly of the antebellum era.

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📚 TWO CHARLES DICKENS WORKS
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🌊 FIRST INSTALLMENT — "DICKENS'S CHRISTMAS STORY — A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA" — NEARLY SIX PAGES
The first installment of A Message from the Sea — Charles Dickens's Christmas story for 1860, written in collaboration with Wilkie Collins and published simultaneously in Dickens's journal All the Year Round in London and in Harper's Weekly in America. At nearly six pages of text, this is the most substantial single Dickens contribution to any issue in the entire 1859-1860 Harper's Weekly run — a complete immersive Christmas reading experience of the kind Dickens had pioneered with A Christmas Carol in 1843. The story — a maritime tale of a sailor, a message, and a mystery of identity and inheritance — carries all of Dickens's characteristic warmth, social observation, and narrative drive. Published nine days after South Carolina's secession, this Christmas story of identity and redemption is Dickens's final gift to American readers before their world changed forever. A primary document of Victorian literary history and Dickens's Christmas story tradition.

✍️ CONTINUING SERIALIZATION — "GREAT EXPECTATIONS" BY CHARLES DICKENS
A continuing installment of Great Expectations — making this the only issue in the entire Harper's Weekly run to contain two separate Dickens works simultaneously. Two Dickens works in one complete original issue is an extraordinary literary collecting opportunity.

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🎄 CHRISTMAS 1860 — THE LAST ANTEBELLUM CHRISTMAS
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🍽️ FULL FRONT PAGE — "CHRISTMAS DAY, 1860" — A FAMILY AT CHRISTMAS DINNER
A full front-page illustration of a family gathered at Christmas dinner — the last Christmas before the Civil War, published nine days after South Carolina's secession on December 20. The warm domestic scene — family around the table, Christmas abundance, the joy of the holiday — carries extraordinary historical resonance as the last such unclouded Christmas image in the antebellum Harper's Weekly run. The next four Christmas issues would be wartime. A warm, beautiful, and very frameable piece of Victorian American Christmas culture at its most poignant.

⛪ FULL PAGE — "CHRISTMAS CHIMES AT TRINITY CHURCH, NEW YORK"
A full-page illustration of the Christmas chimes at Trinity Church — the great Episcopal church at Broadway and Wall Street in lower Manhattan, whose bells had rung out over New York's financial district for generations. A vivid and very frameable piece of New York City Christmas and religious history.

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📋 CONDITION
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I photograph every page of every issue so you can inspect the condition closely before purchasing. Please review all images carefully and don't hesitate to ask any questions — I'm happy to provide additional detail or close-up shots of any page, illustration, or area of concern before you buy.

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📌 DETAILS
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Publication ········ Harper's Weekly
Date ──────────── December 29, 1860
City ──────────── New York
Format ············· Illustrated newspaper, complete in 16 pages

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📦 SHIPPING & PRESERVATION
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• Stored in an acid-free protective bag and flat-shipped in a padded envelope with heavy cardboard reinforcement
• Fully tracked for your peace of mind

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🔍 SEO TAGS
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