[Rarebooks] fa: JOHN BULL - "A THOROUGHLY SCURRILOUS PUBLICATION" - 29 Issues 1827-28

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, along with other 17th, 18th & 19th-Century English titles,  
auctions ending Sunday, September 25. More details and images can be  
found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/arch_in_la/m.html?_trksid=p4340.l2562

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

[Theodore Hook, ed.:] John Bull. London: Edward Shackell, [1827-28]. A  
bound incomplete run of 29 issues, from January 7 1827-December 28  
1828; 232 pages in total. Tall folio (40.5 cm; 16 in), modern paper  
self-wraps with printed labels.

A rare collection of this lively, virulently high-Tory weekly, "that  
pestilential paper" (Countess of Jersey), "a thoroughly scurrilous  
publication, assailing the private as well as the public characters of  
those whom it singled out for attack" (Henry Vizetelly). John Bull was  
launched by Theodore Hook in 1820 for the purpose of attacking Queen  
Caroline and her adherents, and quickly attained "a success which has  
probably never been surpassed in the history of any weekly newspaper."  
After the death of the Queen, it persevered in defending God and King  
while gleefully assailing, mocking and libeling the forces of reform  
and "Radicalism."


The first issue (Jan. 7, 1827) announces the death of the "most noble  
and illustrious" Duke of York and there are details of his life and  
funeral over the next several issues, all of which are printed within  
black borders of mourning. The twenty-nine issues also feature news of  
Haiti and the West Indies, Henry Brougham, the Duke of Wellington,  
King George IV, Sir Robert Peel and the reformation of the criminal  
code, Andrew Jackson ("President of the United States in prospectù"),  
the Corn Laws, Catholic Emancipation, Slavery, Aerostation  
(ballooning), Gambling in High Life, the theatre world, murders,  
suicides, infidelities, duels, bankrupts, hunting disasters, and  
diverse other subjects too numerous to mention; plus hundreds of  
advertisements for governesses, travelling servants, lunatic asylums,  
lectures, books, auctions, remedies, macassar oil, etc.; classified  
ads ("An Independent Lady, whose time and money are at her own  
disposal, is invited to join a professional Gentleman in short  
excursions of from one to four weeks, from London..."), etc., etc. A  
vivid, invaluable record of the  political, social and artistic life  
of the period.

Two of the December, 1828 issues are bound out of sequence. Leaves  
toned and sometimes browned, occasional rubbing, spotting and  
offsetting; one issue (4 leaves) with dampstains; short edge-tears and  
creasing to the bottom corner of six leaves; corners of three leaves  
torn away, one with a neat note inscribed in ink around the tear by  
the original perpetrator or her parent: "You're[sic] little Grand- 
daughter's doing"; a number of issues with one or two paragraphs  
mysteriously marked with tiny ink dots and tick-marks (not affecting  
legibility),  possibly the work of the same naughty grand-daughter;  
otherwise contents are generally clean and sound, firmly bound in  
handsome modern wraps.