[Rarebooks] fa: CHARLES LAMB - RANKS AND DIGNITIES OF BRITISH SOCIETY 1809 w/ 24 Costume Plates

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, May 26. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/ljpyb3g

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


[Charles Lamb:] A Book Explaining the Ranks and Dignities of British Society. Intended Chiefly for the Instruction of Young Persons. With Twenty-four Coloured Engravings. Dedicated (by permission) to Her Royal Highness the Princess Elizabeth. London: Printed for Tabart and Co. at the Juvenile and School Library…by Heney & Haddon, 1809. Early, presumably original, binding of drab boards and black roan spine tooled in gilt; 12mo (15.5 cm); [4], 136, [4] pp.; publisher's adverts, 24 hand-colored engraved plates. Gumuchian 3594.

Issued anonymously but now generally attributed to Charles Lamb, who wrote a number of juvenile works for the publisher Benjamin Tabart, this is a charmingly illustrated little book delineating the hierarchy of the nobility, clergy, army, navy, government and professions; with their history and origins, forms of address, order of precedence, honors,  their coronets and coronation robes described, etc. The perfect guide for anyone navigating a royal levee or state occasion. Binding rather rubbed with wear to the edges and corners; some browning to the frontispiece and title-page, bump and closed tear to the fore-edges of  the first 7 leaves; some dust-soiling to the edges of the text block, scattered light spotting and toning and occasional small stains, a few short edge-tears; the front (blank) endpaper has been removed and a couple of page-gatherings are just starting to loosen a bit, but are secure; otherwise generally quite clean and sound.

This copy's complement of twenty-four plates tallies with the number of plates given on the book's title-page and its "List of Plates." Contrary to what the List specifies, however, there is no plate for "A Knight" and there is no sign that it was ever bound in; there are instead two different plates of "Court Dresses" (a Gentleman and a Lady), while the List only calls for one. A quick perusal of the catalogues of those libraries holding copies (UCLA, HRC, NYPL, Harvard, Lilly, Morgan, etc.) reveals no copies with more than twenty-four plates; furthermore, the only institution that describes the plates in any detail notes a discrepancy identical to the one in this copy: "UCLA copy has no plate for A Knight; has two different plates for Court Dresses", leading us to suspect that this edition at least was issued without the Knight plate. In any case, 24 plates are called for and 24 plates are present.