[Rarebooks] fa: TOWER OF LONDON 1840 w/ GEORGE CRUIKSHANK ALS - 1st Issue/Fine Calf Binding

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, along with other illustrated works, auctions ending Sunday, February 10. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/bcytbhq

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

William Harrison Ainsworth: The Tower of London. A Historical Romance. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: Richard Bentley, 1840. First edition in book form. Tall 8vo (23 cm) bound in full polished calf by Lloyd, Wallis & Lloyd with richly gilt-decorated spine compartments, red morocco spine label, gilt-tooled inner dentelles, marbled endpapers, gilt page edges; 439 pp.; with 40 full-page steel etchings and 58 woodcut illustrations by Cruikshank. Cohn 14.

The first issue of the plates, as per Cohn. Binding with light rubbing, modest wear to the corners, front hinge professionally repaired/restored; mild toning to the leaves (most noticeable on the title and frontispiece), a few occasional small spots; otherwise clean and sound, firmly bound. Front paste-down with the armorial bookplate of Harold Molyneaux Fletcher. A solid, handsome, elegantly bound copy of this enormously popular historical novel set in the time of Henry VIII.

Loosely inserted in the book is an AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED from CRUIKSHANK to Mr. Wm. C. M. Kent, dated "48 Mornington Place Janry. 7, 1851." Single sheet folded to make four pages, 180 x 113 mm, writing on one page; small circular blindstamp of a crown in the upper left corner. Two light horizontal folds, otherwise in very good or better condition. The letter reads in part: "I… shall have much pleasure in accepting your kind and friendly invitation to witness the private theatricals at Miss Kellys Theatre on that evening. Although we have hitherto been strangers to each other, I trust that we shall be so no longer, and that henceforth we may each subscribe ourselves, yours very truly Geo. Cruikshank." The recipient is presumably the mid-Victorian occasional writer and minor poet William C.M. Kent, a contributor to Dickens's Household Words and best known (if known at all) for Aletheia; or the Doom of Mythology; with other Poems (1850). Miss Kelly's Theatre, opened in 1840 by the actress Fanny Kelly (the love of Charles Lamb's life), was primarily used by fashionable amateurs for the staging of private theatricals. By 1850 it had changed its name to the Soho Theatre, but as we see in the letter, old London hands like Cruikshank still referred to it by its original name. Mornington Place was the last of Cruikshank's London addresses; he lived there for many years, publishing numerous works bearing the imprint, "48 Mornington Place" and he died there in 1878.