About this Item
First edition, 2 volumes, 8vo, pp. xiv, 451, [1]; viii, 460; 2 engraved frontispiece portraits, 12 engraved plates and 300 wood engravings in the text; original brown cloth, gilt-stamped spines; spine ends on volume I compromised with chips out, chip out of the top of the spine on volume II; both volumes slightly shaken; bindings bright and the text clean. This copy with the bookplates of Hugh W. Diamond, F.S.A., Surgeon; Stephen George Holland; and the Minnesota Historical Society (with release stamp), and small MHS stickers on spines. An interesting copy with a presentation in volume II to "H. W. Diamond, Esq. with the kind regards of the author, Thomas Wright." Also with a series of 7 autograph notes and letters tipped in, the first from Wright to Diamond, November 28, 1846 stating "I am very much interested in caricatures just now - in fact I am compiling a book on the subject . I am told that you have made a collection, and venture on the liberty of asking you if you would allow me to look them over some day . I should take it as a great obligation." The second letter is from William Smith (undated) to Diamond stating: "I forgot to mention this morning that Morgan comes on Tuesday next to look over the Gillrays and I shall be glad if you will meet him as we shall have something to do." The third letter is again from Wright to Diamond (undated) "I am much obliged to you for your kind note and invitation, which latter I should have accepted with great pleasure, but unfortunately I am engaged for next Sunday to a dinner at Kensington . I would like to take advantage of Sunday week to look at the caricatures . I will then tell you what I am doing on the subject." The remaining four letters are from Edward Hawkins (2), and William Smith (2), all on arranging viewings of the caricatures in Diamond's collection Hugh Diamond (1809-1886) was a "medical doctor, antiquarian, and collector of prints, [and] a prime example of a gentleman amateur who furthered the development of the new medium of photography. He made his first photograph in April 1839, only three months after Talbot's demonstration of the invention, was instrumental in founding the Photographic Society in 1853, and through publications and informal gatherings taught many photographers, including Henry Peach Robinson, to use both the calotype and the collodion processes" (metmuseum[dot]org). Stephen George Holland (1817-1908) "in his late teens founded Holland and Sherry cloth merchants probably through a connection with Holland and Sons. H and Sherry were pretty big, exporting £250,000 of cloth p.a. to Russia before the revolution and were still going strong in 2012. SGH was a rich man and his famous art collection including 10 Turners, 3 Gainsboroughs, Friths, Millais, Landseer, Constables, Corot, Cox etc. He died in 1908 when his collection was auctioned at Christie's South Kensington in June" (jjhc.info). William Smith (1808-1876) was a print-seller in London, until 1848; collector of prints and water-colours; officer of several artistic institutions; major donor to the British Museum's Department of Prints and Drawings; occasional adviser to the Royal Academy on purchases for and care of its print collection. Edward Hawkins (1780-1867) was a numismatist and antiquary, and Keeper (1826-60) of the Department of Antiquities, British Museum, which Department he had joined in 1825, after an earlier career as a banker. The British Museum purchased his collection of English medals from him on his retirement in 1860, and he also formed a large collection of English political caricatures, which was purchased by the British Museum in 1868.
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