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A complete first edition set of George Cruikshank s Fairy Library, bound together, as follows: Hop-O My-Thumb and The Seven-League Boots. London: David Bogue, [1853]. Inscribed on title-page, "To the Revd. Thomas Hugo with the regards of Geo. Cruikshank Augt. 9 1853." The History of Jack & the Bean-Stalk. London: David Bogue, [1854]. Inscribed on the list of illustrations, "Revd. Thos. Hugo with the regards of.Geo. Cruikshank." Cinderella and the Glass Slipper. London: David Bogue, [1854]. Inscribed on the recto of the list of illustrations, "Revd. Thos. Hugo.with the regards of Geo. Cruikshank." Puss in Boots. London: Routledge, Warne & Routledge… F. Arnold, [1864]. With the notice "To the Public" on the inside of the front cover repeated on separate leaf in different type, and no list of plates. Cohn notes that Puss in Boots "is extremely rare." Four octavo volumes bound in one (172 x 128 mm). Plates in two states, hand colored and plain. Fifty-one black and white etchings, including frontispieces, on thirty plates. Bound by Francis Bedford in full citron morocco, covers triple-ruled in gilt, spine with five raised bands, richly decorated and lettered in gilt in compartments. Original green front covers for each volume bound in. The back covers are not present. With the bookplates of Francis Wilson and Marshall Reid Anspach on front pastedown. Also with the ink signature of Francis Wilson on the first and second blank leaves. Fine. Likely the first issues of these titles, though it is impossible to confirm without the back covers. However, the first three titles are inscribed by George Cruikshank to the Reverend Thomas Hugo (1820 - 1876) and the first inscription is dated August 9, 1853. Hugo, author of The Bewick Collector (1868), was a major collector of contemporary printed illustration. Cruikshank sent him several inscribed works, including the china paper proofs of the plates in Hop-O My-Thumb, which are now held at Princeton (Patten, George Cruikshank s Life). Hugo was also "A ripe scholar, a refined English gentleman, and a stanch High Church priest.He was elected a Fellow of the Societies of Antiquaries, Literature, the Linnaean, and a host of others. From his pen sprang innumerable lectures, essays, catalogues, histories and reviews.[H]e was a most ardent collector of Bewickiana, a pursuit in which he spent much time and money…" (Bigmore and Wyman, A Bibliography of Printing, p. 348). Cohn 196-199. Fine.
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