James Ronins (1 results)

4 volumes, 12mo (approx. 6" x 3½"), pp. 226, [2]; 230, [2]; 222, [2]; 226, [2]; each volume with an engraved frontispiece and vignette title page (all hand colored), plus a total of 32 hand-colored plates, all after George Cruikshank; each volume retaining the leaf at end with list of plates and the publisher's adverts on verso; full blue crushed morocco by Riviere and Son, triple gilt rules on covers, spines in 6 compartments, gilt-lettered direct in 1, a.e.g., gilt turn-ins; light rubbing, top of one spine barely chipped; very good and sound, or better. The first volume is a reissue with the volume number on the title page dated 1822; volumes two through four are first edition, first issue. Volume three is signed by Cruikshank and dated Nov. 22, 1868 at the top of the engraved title page. "The Humourist.gave Cruikshank his first sustained opportunity to devise illustrations; Blanchard Jerrold calls it his first remarkable separate work. Robins issued forty-six penny parts, stitched into green wrappers with a colored etching in each, during 1819 and 1820. The parts were also bound in four volumes (as here). In several respects this format anticipates the one Dickens and his publishers revived for Pickwick Papers and the other serials" (Patten). Cohen 419.