Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$3500.00 + shipping
Description: A Handsomely Bound Complete Set of George Cruikshanks's "The Comic Almanacks" [CRUIKSHANK, George, illustrator]. The Comic Almanack, for 1835[-1853]: An Ephemeris in Jest and Earnest, Containing "All Things Fitting for Such a Work." By Rigdum Funnidos, Gent. Adorned with a Dozen of "Righte Merrie" Cuts, Pertaining to the Months, Sketched and Etched by George Cruikshank. London: Imprinted for Charles Tilt, 1835-1841; Imprinted for Tilt and Bogue, 1842-1843; Published by David Bogue, 1844-1853. First editions. A complete set of nineteen small octavo volumes. With 195 etched plates by George Cruikshank, including five folding frontispieces (four hand-colored), wood-engraved text illustrations. Complete with the additional hand colored 'Natural History' plate in the 1837 volume. Handsomely bound ca. 1910 by Zaehnsdorf for A.C. Mc Clurg & Co., stamp-signed in gilt on front turn-in. Full red polished calf, covers bordered in gilt, spines with five raised bands, decoratively tooled in gilt in compartments, with two maroon morocco labels, lettered in gilt, gilt ruled board edges, decorative gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt, others uncut Original stiff printed wrappers (1835-1849) and cloth covers (1850-1853) bound in. A few wrappers with very light soiling. From the library of Harriett Pullman Carolan 'Carolands' with her engraved bookplate on the front paste-down of each volume. Some joints a little rubbed but still quite sound. A very attractive example. This fine and complete set collates almost identically with Albert M. Cohn's description - the only difference being the second issue of the 1845 issue with the woodcut "Fine Art Distribution" on page 31. Otherwise our set is first issue throughout including the hand-colored natural history plate in the rear ads of the 1837 issue, 'Bogue's Annual Catalogue' at the beginning of the 1847 issue, and the first issue of the 1848 almanack with green wrappers with black print. George Cruikshank's Comic Almanack was the most important of a number of comic almanacks of the late Regency period which parodied and subverted the popular almanack genre to poke fun at their educational aspirations and at society at large. "The text, edited by Mayhew, was contributed to by a host of humorous talent, including Thackeray, who enriched the issues of 1839 and 1840, with two of the best of his minor writings,â"'The Fatal Boots,' and âBarber Cox's Diary.' The 24 etchings for these years being solely devoted to illustrating these two Miscellanies" (The Notable and Extensive Collection of Illustrated Books and Caricatures from the Private Library of J. Barton Townsend, Esq. of Philadelphia, The American Art Association, 5 February 1919, lot 246). Carolands: The woman who built Carolands, Harriett Pullman Carolan (1869-1956), was the daughter of George Pullman, a 19th-century industrialist, one of Chicago's wealthiest men, and founder of the Pullman Company, famous for its Palace railway cars. In Chicago in 1892, Harriett Pullman married Francis Carolan of San Francisco and moved with him to California. In 1912, she acquired 554 acres (224hectares) of land in Hillsborough, on which she intended to build a house and garden that would excite "the wonder and admiration of America" and reflect her many refined and cultivated interests. The result was a masterpiece of Beaux-Arts architecture, inspired by the court architecture of Louis XIV. Carolan chose the site, the highest in the neighborhood, for its commanding views of the San Francisco Bay and the surrounding hills. Cohn 184.
Seller: David Brass Rare Books, Inc., Calabasas, CA, U.S.A.