Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$600.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: 4to. (28 by 20 cm, or 11 by 9 inches.) Twelve hand-colored engraved plates plus sixteen textual woodcuts. Cohn 53. Contemporary morocco over boards. Leather is very rubbed and scuffed, and boards have wear, with paper laid on lifting in a few minor spots. Interior is tight and mostly clean -- there is some scattered light soiling -- and plates themselves are bright and crisp.
Seller: White Fox Rare Books, ABAA/ILAB, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$937.50 + shipping
Description: First edition; 4to, pp. [4], 200; 12 engraved plates by Cruikshank, each in 2 states (hand-colored and plain), plus other vignette illustrations in the text; later three-quarter blue morocco by Riviere and Son, gilt-decorated spine in 6 compartments, gilt-lettered direct in 2, t.e.g.; extremities rubbed; the plain plates rather browned; all else very good and sound. "Greenwich Hospital is a hearty, good-natured book, treating of the virtues of British tars in approved nautical language. They maul Frenchmen and Spaniards, they go out in brigs and take frigates, they relieve women in distress. The artist, like a true Englishman as he is, loves dearly these brave guardians of old England, and chronicles their real or fanciful exploits with the greatest goodwill." Abbey, Scenery, 226; Cohn 53.
Seller: Rulon-Miller Books (ABAA / ILAB), St. Paul, MN, U.S.A.
Price: US$975.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: 4to. 28.5 by 22 cm. 200 pp. Twelve hand-colored engraved plates plus sixteen textual woodcuts. Cohn 53. Rebacked with dark navy morocco, contemporary marbled boards. Some scattered light foxing. The plates, though, are especially bright, and generally clean.
Seller: White Fox Rare Books, ABAA/ILAB, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$1732.41 + shipping
Description: First edition of this rollicking colour plate book, among Cruikshank's "most brilliantly comic treatments of naval life [capturing] with incomparable vivacity the frolics of tars ashore and at sea" (Johnson, p. 7). This copy presented in an attractive period-style binding. Cruikshank was a friend of Barker (1790-1846), who was born at Deptford, London's old shipbuilding dock, and who at 16 joined an East Indiaman, afterwards serving in the Royal Navy, where "as he was without influence, he never rose beyond the rank of master's mate" (ODNB). Under the pseudonym of Old Sailor he wrote a number of lively and spirited sea tales, very popular in their day. "He was naval editor of the United Service Gazette and a frequent contributor to the Literary Gazette, the Pictorial Times, and Bentley's Miscellany, the last at the time under the editorship of Charles Dickens, who came to value the consistent quality of the contributions of 'the old Sailor'" (ibid.). However, with the waning popularity of his stories, his fortunes took a turn for the worse and he died in poverty in Covent Garden. That we remember him today is largely due to Cruikshank's ageless illustrations, here in the form of a fine series of aquatints - although the delightful wood-engraved tailpieces should not be overlooked, particularly the slightly uncertain Marine mounted on a "sea horse" (p. 48) and the goose sporting a naval bicorne, crutches and a pair of wooden legs (p. 10). John Buchanan-Brown, in his excellent monograph on the artist refers to Greenwich Hospital as "the finest illustrated book in Cruikshank's 'Regency' style". Abbey, Scenery, 226; John Buchanan-Brown, The Book Illustrations of George Cruikshank, David & Charles, 1980; Cohn, Cruikshank, 53; E. D. H. Johnson in Robert L. Patten (ed.), George Cruikshank: A Revaluation, Princetonn University Press, 1992. Quarto (277 x 229 mm). Professionally rebound to style in navy blue straight-grain half calf, smooth spine divided by gilt foliate rolls, red label, Shell pattern marbled sides, top edge gilt. 12 hand-coloured aquatint plates by Cruikshank, wood-engraved title vignette (also hand-coloured) and 15 tailpieces; no discernible watermarks. General foxing, marginal tidemark at p. 53, wax stain in margin at p. 159. A handsome copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Price: US$2000.00 + shipping
Description: First edition. Illustrated with 12 Color Plates by George Cruikshank. [4], [1]-200 pp. 1 vols. 4to. A famous and popular early production of Cruikshank's, illustrating the nautical accounts of Matthew Henry Barker (1790-1846). The artist illustrated other of Barker's sea tales; in 1820 and 1822 Cruikshank's illustrations for Life in London, and Life in Paris had caught the public's fancy, and Greenwich Hospital solidified his reputation as one of the best known and inventive illustrators of his day. Half pebbled nineteenth century blue morocco and marbled boards, t.e.g Illustrated with 12 Color Plates by George Cruikshank. [4], [1]-200 pp. 1 vols. 4to
Seller: James Cummins Bookseller, ABAA, New York, NY, U.S.A.