The English Spy:
An Original Work, Characteristic, Satirical, and Humorous. Comprising Scenes and Sketches in Every Rank of Society, Being Portraits of the Illustrious, Eminent, Eccentric, and Notorious. Drawn from the Life by Bernard Blackmantle.
London: Sherwood, Jones, and Co., 1825 (v. I); Sherwood, Gilbert, and Piper, 1826 (v. II).
First edition, complete. Two Medium octavo volumes, 9-3/8 x 6-1/4 in. (23.8 x 15.8 cm) overall, the pages 9 x 5-3/4 in. (22.8 x 14.6 cm). 72 inserted plates on thick Whatman wove (all with original tissue-guards), including full-page uncolored woodcut after Robert Cruikshank and 71 aquatinted and colored copperplate engravings, 67 by Cruikshank, two by Rowlandson and one each by Wageman and Brightly; 42 text woodcuts (37 listed, four unlisted, one repeated on titles) after Cruickshank, Rowlandson, Gilray and Finlay; 32 woodcut tailpieces. Contemporary full dark maroon morocco, covers and spines framed with gilt rule, spines in five compartments with raised bands and gilt lettering, cover edges ruled in gilt, elaborately gilt dentelles, top edges gilt, others rough cut, moss green endpapers. Collates (v. I) [3 ll. (endleaf and binder’s blanks)], 1 l. (frontispiece), 1 l. (title), pp. [iii]-xxiii, [1 p.], 1 l. (fly-title), pp. [3]-417, 1 p. (printer’s credit), [3 ll. (endleaf and binder’s blanks)] (plus [1 l.] between E and F); (v. II) [3 ll. (endleaf and binder’s blanks)], 1 l. (plate I repositioned as frontispiece), 1 l. (title), pp. [iii]-xv, [1 p.], 1 l. (fly-title), pp. [3]-399, 1 p. (printer’s credit), [3 ll. (endleaf and binder’s blanks)]; 36 ll. (vol. I) and 36 ll. (vol. II) inserted plates, inclusive of frontispieces, printed one side only and tissue-guarded. Very good, negligible scuffing on covers, joints starting, slight tip wear, offsetting of dentelles onto facing endpapers, separation in gutter at FF3 v. I, infrequent faint to mild offsetting of woodcut plates onto facing pages and letterpress onto blank sides of plates, red silk marker ribbon perished v. I but intact v. II; overall an excellent set in complete, nearly original condition. J.R. Abbey, Life in England (1953), no. 325, pp. 273-4; Martin Hardie, English Coloured Books (1906), pp. 175, 191-2; S.T. Prideaux, Aquatint Engraving (1909), pp. 310-2, 328; R.V. Tooley, Some English Books (1935), pp. 266-9.
Playing the world as a ball above a hellish stage of English wit (frontispiece,
v. I) set by Pierce Egan’s Life in London, Bernard Blackmantle
(Westmacott) and Bob Transit (Cruickshank) stride arm-in-arm at the end
(woodcut vignette p. 399, v. II) to deliver their racy account to commerce.
Notwithstanding this chummy egalitarianism, Westmacott, son, half-brother
and uncle of prominent sculptors and indeed portrayed sketching at Haydon’s
feet in Rowlandson’s plate “R.A.’s of Genius,” leaves
no mistake “that in every instance, the subjects for the Plates illustrating
this work have been furnished by his pen, and not infrequently, the rough
ideas have emanated from his own pencil….” This set, apparently
just as every other set, exhibits the “first issue points” cited
by Tooley and doubtlessly a long line of predecessors (all the way back
to Blackmantle?) which Major Abbey, writing two decades after Tooley, pooh-poohs
(Life, p. 274): “Two bibliographical points have been fastened
to this book: copies carrying plate numbered 28 [v. I] with the date misprinted
‘1284’ instead of ‘1824’, and with page 222 in Volume
II blank have been accounted ‘first issues’, but an examination
of a considerable number of copies has failed to produce a single instance
of any copy existing without these ‘points’. […] Whatever
the reason may be, the fact remains that the existence of ‘second
issues’ is problematical, one more instance of a printing oddity of
no bibliographical value whatever.” The English Spy, quite
apart from this canard, holds its value as “perhaps the most daring
book ever published” (Prideaux), “a veritable chronique scandaleuse
of the time” (Hardie), worthy of its author’s tabloid rag The
New Age, a blackmail machine if ever there was, and illustrated with
great vigor and verve by probably Robert Cruickshank’s most important
work.
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Price: $1,600
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