-
Description by British Museum (1865,1111.2128): "Two designs, side by side. [1] A dandy (probably a portrait), florid, whiskered, and bearded, steps jauntily from the pavement, hand extended, saying: Ah! my dear fellow — How are you? Devilish glad to see ye!— He holds a closed umbrella, ferrule erect, and wears a long tight-waisted coat to the heels, unbuttoned, tight pantaloons and spurred boots. In the middle distance, another dandy grasps the hand of a friend on horseback. Behind are houses with shop-fronts. A man raises his hat to a lady who curtseys. [2] The same dandy steps from the roadway onto the pavement, his handkerchief to his nose; he stoops, trying to conceal himself from a dandy cantering past in a cloud of dust, his eye-glass to his eye. He is without gloves, extraordinary for a dandy, and his trousers are strapped over pumps; he says: Con-found it! — Didn't expect to meet Him!! The street is otherwise empty; against the (large) houses are scaffolding and a tall ladder." Lettered with title, text within image including production details: 'Ego. delt / Etched by G. Ck / Pubd by J Fairburn Broadway Ludgate Hill August 18 1826'. Dimensions: Sheet: 25.5 x 36 cm, Image: 21.7 x 33.8 cm. Catalogue raisonné: A. M. Cohn (1924): № 1001, p. 262.: "A wretched plate. Difficult to believe G. C. had anything to do with it." — Bruton. Value.— £1. -
Title: Life in Paris ; | COMPRISING THE | RAMBLES, SPREES, AND AMOURS, | OF | DICK WILDFIRE, | OF CORINTHIAN CELEBRITY, | And his Bang-up Companions, SQUARE JENKINS | AND | CAPTAIN O’SHUFFLETON ; | WITH THE | Whimsical Adventures of the Halibut family ; | Including Sketches of a Variety of other Eccentric Characters in the | FRENCH METROPOLIS. | BY DAVID CAREY |[Vignette]| Embellished with Twenty-One COLOURED PLATES, representing SCENES from REAL LIFE, | designed and engraved by Mr. GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. | Enriched also with Twenty-Two Engravings on Wood, drawn by the same Artist, and | executed by Mr. WHITE. | LONDON : | PRINTED FOR JOHN FAIRBURN, BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL; | Sold by Sherwood, Neely, and Jones ; Langman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown ; and | Baldwin, Craddoc, and Joy ; Paternoster-Row ; Simpkin and Marshall, Statio- | ners’ Court ; Whittakers Ave-Maria-Lane ; Humphrey, St. James’s | Street ; and Wilson, Royal Exchange. | 1822. ||
Edition: 1st edition in book form, 1st issue; large-paper copy bound from the parts in original blue paper boards, "most scarce" (Cohn).
Pagination: ffl, [i, ii] – h.t. ‘LIFE IN PARIS’ / ‘MARCHANT, Printer, Ingram-Court, London’, [2] – blank / Frontispiece (Ville la Bagatelle!!) hand-coloured, [iii, iv] – t.p. with vignette / blank, [v] vi-xxiv, [1] 2-489 [490 blank], [2] – 'TO THE BINDER' and 'Marchant, Printer, Ingram-Court, Fenchurch Street' "considered indispensable to a complete copy" (Cohn) / blank, bfl watermarked 1800; 21 hand-coloured aquatints and 22 wood-engraved text vignettes; cancelled leaves 143/4 and 335/6; pinholes from printing visible in most gatherings.
Collation: 4to; [a]-c4, B-Z4 Aa-Zz4 3A-3Q4 3R1 + [Ω]1
Binding: Original boards sometime re-backed with red paper, binder's end leaf watermarked 1800; red hard-grained morocco clamshell box.
Catalogue raisonné: Albert M. Cohn, 1924: № 109 p. 37/8; Abbey, J. R. (Life in England), 112; Tooley (Some English Books with Coloured Plates) 129; Hardie (English coloured books) 199.
Description of Shapero Rare Books, London: Of the copies that have come to auction since 1975 only one has been a large-paper copy in original boards. "The pictures are extremely spirited and true and are all the more wonderful in view of the fact that the artist’s continental experiences were limited to one day spent in Boulogne." (Hardie). In 1821, the journalist Pierce Egan published Life in London, an immediate success illustrated by the Cruikshank brothers, George and Robert. In order to capitalise on this success, another journalist, David Carey, decided to publish his own Life in Paris in monthly instalments (just like Life in London) and with a very similar frontispiece to the one that appears in Egan’s work; Life in Paris, however, was illustrated only by George Cruikshank. One of the earliest and most notable examples of the work of George Cruikshank, with fine, clean plates.
