W.M. Thackeray | An Essay on George Cruikshank, [n.d.], 3 vols, extensively extra-illustrated

William Makepeace Thackeray

An Essay on George Cruikshank... illustrated by specimens selected from his numerous works. 1810-1870. No date

Extended and enlarged to 3 volumes, large 4to (370 x 272mm.), half-title and title to each volume, section of AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED AND SIGNED ENVELOPE at front of volume 1, title-page from Cruikshankiana: illustrations from Grimm's German Popular Stories in volume 1 signed and dated "George Cruikshank | October 7th 1868", extra-illustrated with numerous engraved plates (including book illustrations, title-pages, and cartoons), many window-mounted, some hand-coloured, some with manuscript captions, nineteenth-century green morocco, spines with raised bands in five compartments, gilt edges, marbled endpapers, some spotting, extremities slightly rubbed

Extra-illustrated with a comprehensive collection of book and periodical illustrations, title-pages, and cartoons by George Cruikshank, the engraver celebrated by his contemporaries as the "modern Hogarth".

Volume 1 includes a section of an autograph letter signed and a signed envelope and an undated 60pp article from The Westminster Review interleaved with engravings from works listed and mentioned in the article (The Humorist, The Political House that Jack Built, The Queen's Matrimonial Ladder, Non mi ricordo, Life in London, or the Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn, Life in Paris, Tales of Irish Life, Demonology and Witchcraft, Illustrations of the English Novelists, The Bee and the Wasp, Bentley’s Miscellany, Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, Oliver Twist, Sketches by Boz, Jack Sheppard; a Romance, The Tower of London, Points of Humour, Burns's Jolly Beggars, and Victor Hugo's Hans of Iceland). Also bound in is a copy of the Catalogue of the Morson Collection of Works of George Cruikshank (Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, 31 March 1871), the title-page apparently taken from a large format catalogue, the rest from an 8vo catalogue including the names of buyers, hammer prices, and the sale total in manuscript.

Volume 2 includes a very early impression (thus described in manuscript) of "Fairy Connoisseurs Inspecting Mr. Frederick Locker's Collection of Drawings", a copy of George Cruickshank's Omnibus interleaved with illustrations, and copies of The Political House that Jack Built, The Political "A, Apple-Pie", Non mi Ricordo, and John Bull's Constitutional Apple-Pie bound in.

Volume 3 includes illustrations for William Harrison Ainsworth's The Tower of London: an historical Romance, alongside a title-page with an autograph dedication from Ainsworth, and illustrations from Whom to Marry and How to Get Married, Puss in Boots, Henry Mayhew's Adventures of Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys (promoting the 1851 Great Exhibition), and a series of temperance-themed illustrations for The Bottle and its sequel The Drunkard's Children.