Hudibras, A Poem. With Notes, selected from Grey and other authors: to which are prefixed, a Life of the Author, and a Preliminary Discourse on the Civil War, &c. A New Edition, embellished with engravings.

First Clark illustrated edition, a beautifully produced volume with numerous hand-coloured aquatint plates, attractively bound. John Heaviside Clark (c. 1771-1863) was a Scottish landscape painter and engraver, known as "Waterloo Clark" because of the sketches he made on the field immediately after the battle. He was a regular exhibitor Royal Academy between 1801 and 1832. Samuel Butler's Hudibras, a satiric poem on the English Civil War written in Chaucerian couplets, was first published in English from 1663 to 1678. Voltaire notes that "there is one English Poem, the title whereof is Hudibras; it is Don Quixote; it is our Satyre Menippee blended together: I never met with so much wit in one single book as this" (Letters Concerning the English Nation). Tooley, p. 132. 2 vols, octavo (215 x 128 mm). With 12 full-page aquatint plates, all after J. H. Clark. Early 20th-century tan calf by Riviere & Son, spines with gilt dotted raised bands, red morocco labels, lettering and elaborate floral decoration in gilt to compartments, covers bordered with a triple gilt fillet, board edges and turn-ins tooled in gilt, marbled endpapers, edges gilt. A very good set, bright and square, some discolouration to spines, vol. II with short superficial split at tail of front joint, but firm, one corner slightly bumped, negligible marks to sides, intermittent faint foxing and toning to contents, else clean and well-margined.…