[Rarebooks] fa: WILLIAM HONE & GEORGE CRUIKSHANK - A BILL TO DEPRIVE QUEEN CAROLINE OF HER TITLE 1820

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, November 20. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/gver2yx

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA

[William Hone; George Cruikshank, illus.:] In Parliament. Dropt Clauses out of the Bill Against the Queen. For Mr. Attorney General to peruse and settle. With a Refresher…A Bill to deprive Her Majesty Caroline Amelia Elizabeth of the Title, Prerogatives, Rights, Privileges, and Pretensions of Queen Consort of this Realm, and to dissolve the Marriage between His Majesty and said Queen. London: W. Hone, [1820]. Folio sheet (ca. 40 x 29 xm) folded to make two leaves (4 pp.); woodcut illustration.

A rare piece of satirical ephemera: a satire in defense of Queen Caroline, issued in the form of a faux legal document, by the irrepressible publisher and pamphleteer William Hone. The divorce proceedings initiated against Caroline by George IV made the queen a cause celebre of reform-minded Whigs, who used her plight as a bludgeon against the king, a former Whig himself, and his Tory administration. The attribution of the illustration to Cruikshank is from Harvard University Library's Widener Collection: A catalogue of the works illustrated by George Cruikshank (p. 61). The woodcut depicts the king's retainers toiling to polish his tarnished image while others are busy besmirching his wife's.

Section clipped from the bottom of the center fold (as issued?), not affecting the text, browning to the top edge, dust-soiling to p. [4], a few short closed tears at the folds and edges, else quite clean and sound.