[Rarebooks] fa: MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE + MORE MISERIES + COMFORTS - 4 vols./Plates 1806-07

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, October 21. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/ycwcr73u

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


[James Beresford:] The Miseries of Human Life; or The Groans of Samuel Sensitive, and Timothy Testy, with a Few Supplementary Sighs from Mrs. Testy. In Twelve Dialogues. London: William Miller, 1806. Two volumes; the fifth edition (same year as the first). [WITH:] More Miseries!! Addressed to the Morbid, the Melancholy, and the Irritable. By Sir Fretful Murmur, Knt. London: H. D. Symonds...and Mathews and Leigh, 1806. First edition. [WITH:] [Robert Heron:] The Comforts of Human Life; or Smiles and Laughter of Charles Chearful and Martin Merryfellow. In Seven Dialogues. London: Oddy and Co., 1807. First edition.

Together, three works in four volumes, tall 12mos (14.5 cm), uniformly bound in early/period speckled calf with gilt-decorated spines and gilt-lettered morocco spine labels. All four volumes with an engraved folding frontispiece, three of which are colored. Bindings with very modest wear to the edges and extremities, some rubbing and cracking to a couple of the joints, several joints professionally repaired (all the boards are secure); offsetting/darkening to the first and last few leaves from the binder's glue, one frontispiece with offsetting and old paper repairs to the verso, occasional light browning and spotting, but generally very clean and sound, firmly bound. A very good set. Front paste-downs with the small, circular armorial bookplates, tooled in gilt, of Dudley C[outts] Marjoribanks (1820-1894), 1st Baron Tweedmouth.

The Miseries of Human Life, a collection of humorous sketches bemoaning the annoyances and agonies of everyday existence in Regency England, was enormously popular, quickly going through numerous printings and spawning several imitators, two of the best of which are included here in their first editions; the last-named work is particularly uncommon thus. The frontispiece for the first volume of Miseries is by W. H. Pyne.