8vo. xiv, [2], 165pp,[1]. With half-title and a decorated, tinted title page. Richly illustrated by R. Calcott, with 8 engraved plates and numerous in-text illustrations. Finely bound in contemporary gilt-tooled half-vellum, contrasting green morocco lettering-piece, marbled blue cloth boards. Marbled endpapers. Spotting to blank fly-leaves and half-title.

An attractive copy, richly illustrated and bound in decidedly late-Victorian style, of a volume of English Christmas traditions recollected by American author Washington Irving, acclaimed for, and immortalised through, his short stories Rip Van Winkle (1819) and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820). Irving's Christmas stories, including sequences from A History of New York (1812) and The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819/20), are considered to have revitalised and cemented the American Christmas spirit, including the first description of St Nicholas, undergoing his cultural transition into the modern Santa Claus, flying across rooftops on a wagon.