The Old Court Suburb
London: Freemantle & Co., 1902
First illustrated edition, after the two editions of 1855 and the third of 1860. Two Princess octavo volumes (overall 227 x 186 mm, the pages 220 x 175 mm). Large paper issue, no. 43 of 150 numbered sets signed by the artists Edmund J. Sullivan, Claude A. Shepperson and Herbert Railton. Illustrated with 24 tissue-guarded engravings on laid chine and 33 wood engravings (15 full page) in vol. 1, 20 tissue-guarded engravings on laid chine and 33 wood engravings (19 full page) in vol. 2. Original full vellum stamped in gilt with pictorial designs on spines and upper and lower covers with gilt lettering, endpapers with wood-engraved design in bistre, top edges gilt, others rough cut. Printed by The Riverside Press Limited, Edinburgh, on a fine, bright wove paper, the inserted engravings laid onto a thicker wove paper printed one side only. Collates vol. 1: [2 ll.], 1 l. (half-title and colophon), 1 l. (tissue-guarded engraved frontispiece), 1 l. (wood-engraved title), pp. [v]-[xvii], [1 p.], pp. [1]-211, 1 p. (printer’s credit), [1 l.], plus 23 other ll. tissue-guarded engravings (the frontispiece is colored, and the engraved plate facing p. 130, “The Old Charity School in 1840,” is not called for in the list of illustrations); vol. 2, [2 ll.], 1 l. (half-title and colophon), 1 l. (tissue-guarded engraved frontispiece), 1 l. (wood-engraved title), pp. [v]-[x], pp. [1]-208, [1 l.], plus 19 other ll. tissue-guarded engravings. Covers slightly bowed, slight spotting of upper edges of covers, negligible other soiling on covers, armorial bookplates on front pastedowns, silk marker ribbons present but detached, else fine, an unopened set, internally immaculate.
Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) was called, for this work, “… the most cheerful of chroniclers, the best of remembrancers of good things, the most polished and entertaining of educated gossips…. And so we have delightful literary talk, about the Crystal Palace of ’51, and Old Kensington Gore, and Gore House with its joyful and sad associations, and the proposed new National Gallery, and Kensington House and the Duchess of Portsmouth, and Dr. Johnson, and the French emigrant’s school, to which Sheil went, and dear Mrs. Inchbald, and dull Sir Richard Blackmore, and the malicious Lord Hervey, and the courts of William, and of Anne, and of George the Second, and so forth. We walk down Kensington High Street, visit the Palace Gardens, pay a great many visits among bygone people in the Square, are taken to spend a long time very profitably in the church and among inscriptions in the church-yard, visit the old charity-school and talk about Sir John Vanbrugh, and by squares and terraces come to Holland House, a place not to be left in a hurry.” Examiner, July 21, 1855. This large-paper issue of Arthur Dobson’s edition is “newly embellish’d” with over a hundred illustrations, including 44 finely delicate engravings on laid chine, the colored frontispiece portrait of Hunt being a notable image of the author, and is offered in an unopened set in exceptional condition.
Provenance: James McCrea (armorial bookplates on each front pastedown).
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Price: $300
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