[Rarebooks] fa: MEMOIRS OF JAMES HARDY VAUX, Swindler and Thief - 1827

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, along with several other 18th- and 19th-century titles,  
auctions ending Sunday, Sept. 26. Details and images can be found at  
the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/yhk74ma
OR
http://shop.ebay.com/arch_in_la/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

Memoirs of James Hardy Vaux, A Swindler and Theif [sic], Now  
Transported to New South Wales, and for Life. Written by Himself.  
Second Edition. London: Printed for Hunt and Clark, 1827. xxiv + 288 pp.

The true second edition (first issue) of Vaux's Memoirs, complete with  
misprint on the title-page, preceded only by the diabolically scarce  
first edition of 1819. Not to be confused with the later (1829 & 1830)  
reissues by Whittaker, Treacher, and Arnot, which are also sometimes  
referred to as "second editions." Bound with: Autobiography. A  
Collection of the Most Instructive and Amusing Lives Ever Published.  
Vol. VI. London: Whittaker, Treacher, and Arnot, 1830. (Containing  
Journal of a Voyage from London to Savannah in Georgia by George  
Whitefield, and A Short Account of the LIfe of James Ferguson, F.R.S.  
Written by Himself; with two engraved portraits.) The whole bound in  
three-quarters leather and marbled boards, gilt-stamped spine label;  
16mo (14.5 cm).

Though most noted for being the first full-length autobiography  
written in Australia, the Memoirs of James Hardy Vaux is also a lively  
and fascinating read in itself. Vaux (1782-1827?) was a thief,  
pickpocket, con man, forger, deserter, rogue and charmer who has the  
distinction of being the only convict known to have been transported  
to New South Wales three times. His fame, however, rests on his  
Memoirs, one of the great depictions of low-life, providing a vivid  
portrait of Georgian London's criminal underworld and the British  
penal system from one who was familiar with both. Book shows some  
rubbing and modest wear to the edges, hinges and boards, mild  
offsetting from the engravings, a few light bumps to the edges of the  
text block; otherwise clean and sound, firmly bound. Vaux's memoirs  
bound in without the half-title page. A very good example of a scarce  
and important book.