[Rarebooks] fa: ALFRED CROWQUILL - THE VAUXHALL PAPERS 1841

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now along with other illustrated works, auctions ending Sunday, March 22. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/k89yxgw

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


The Vauxhall Papers: Edited by Alfred Bunn; Illustrated by Alfred Crowquill.  London: John Andrews [and] John Mitchell, 1841. First edition, bound from the parts. Thin 8vo (19 cm), calf binding by Riviere & Son, sympathetically rebacked in modern calf; 140 pp; frontispiece and numerous in-text illustrations; original printed wraps bound in at the rear.

A light-hearted tribute to London's fabled Vauxhall Gardens, whose glory days were long past by the time the work was published. Vauxhall closed in 1840, half-heartedly reopened in 1841, then staggered on till its ultimate extinction in 1859. "Alfred Crowquill" was a pseudonym used by two brothers, Charles Robert and Alfred Henry Forrester, both popular 19th-century humorists and illustrators.

An uncommon item, originally issued in weekly or monthly parts. The front cover of each part must have been included in the pagination, which explains the 2-page gaps that regularly appear in the pagination of this copy, which was bound up from the parts; the text, however, is complete. (An example of the original front and rear covers are bound in at the end.) The binding, neatly rebacked, shows some wear at the corners; front flyleaf with a short closed tear; light toning to the leaves, but generally quite clean and sound, firmly bound. Front paste-down with the elaborate armorial bookplate of Henry Pepper Vaux and the later monogram booklabel of noted book collector Peter A. Wick.