The Tour of Doctor Syntax, In Search of the Picturesque / The Second Tour of Doctor Syntax, In Search of Consolation / The Third Tour of Doctor Syntax, In Search of a Wife

Mixed set, with ninth edition of vol. I and stated third edition of vols II-III. Octavo (26cm). Uniformly bound in mid-century orange cloth, stamped in blind on boards and gilt on spines, top edges gilt; pale yellow endpapers; I: [iv],[iv],276pp; II: [vi],277,[1]pp; III: [iv],279,[1]pp; illustrated with hand-colored aquatints, vol. I with 31 plates including frontispiece and engraved title page, vol. II with 24 plates including frontis. (but without engraved t.p., as issued), vol. III with 26 plates including frontis., t.p., and concluding vignette. Binder's ticket of Remnant & Edmonds at rear. Bookplates of Robert Arthur Blane in each volume, with 1849 gift inscription to Blane in vol. I. A straight set, largely sound, cloth rubbed and dustsoiled, corners bumped, vol. I chipped at head; internally with some offsetting and fingersoil, a few plates browned or foxed, and one gathering pulled, but most plates bright and fresh: Very Good. Likely an 1840s issue of this popular comic poem (note that all three volumes state "third edition" on title page, but vol. I also states eighth edition on the engraved title page, and includes the advertisement to the ninth edition). Combe's poems about Doctor Syntax combined "lighthearted satire of William Gilpin's theory of the picturesque in art with a central character modelled on Cervantes' Don Quixote and Henry Fielding's Parson Adams" (ODNB). The works gave the illustrator, Thomas Rowlandson, "ample scope for the comic designs of which he was a master," and the aquatints in these books "were his greatest success as an illustrator" (Ray, The Illustrator and the Book in England from 1790 to 1914 p.27). Cf. RAY 34 for the first editions.…