maximums speciments william muggins natural von selby charles (4 Ergebnisse)

Hardcover. Zustand: Fair. First edition. Three quarter red leather gilt-stamped spine, marble papercovered boards, page edges, and endpapers. Twelve illustrations on steel by Onwhyn. Illustrated pages age-toned, boards detached and present, extremities worn, a fair only copy.

Later printing. Later printing. Illustrations by Onwhyn. 1 vols. Tall 8vo. Three-quarter brown morocco, marbled boards. Extremities rubbed, else Fine Illustrations by Onwhyn. 1 vols. Tall 8vo.

Hardcover. Illustrated by Onwhyn, Thomas (illustrator). First Edition. viii, 319pp. Red half morocco lettered and decorated in gold on the spine, marbled endpapers. With twelve illustrations on steel by Thomas Onwhyn (the plate that should be on page 19 according to the list of illustrations is actually the frontispiece). Light scattered foxing throughout, minor wear to lower corner tips. A nice near fine copy. ; Octavo.

First edition in book form of this scarce novel, attractively bound and containing "quasi-autobiographical relevations [in] imitation of the earlier style of Charles Dickens" (ODNB). Dickens was not impressed when the illustrator Thomas Onwhyn produced plates for pirated editions of The Pickwick Papers and Nicholas Nickleby; however, he "objected to piracy but not to imitation and was friendly with Charles Selby, the author of Maximums and Specimens [sic] of William Muggins". For this reason, Dickens remained in better humour when Selby released a dramatization of Barnaby Rudge halfway through its serialization, writing to Selby that "if I could give you a patent for dramatizing my productions I would gladly do so; inasmuch as if they must be done at all, I would rather have them done by gentlemanly hands" (ibid.) The actor and playwright Charles Selby (c.1802-1863, real name George Henry Wilson) was a member of the company at the Strand Theatre who "performed principally character parts and supplied a long series of plays, mainly farces and burlettas - about ninety in all, according to Allardyce Nicoll - many of which were adapted from the French" (ibid.) Maximums and Speciments previously appeared in an unillustrated serialization in the Sunday Times. Library Hub records only three copies in the UK, at the British Library, Cambridge, and Scotland. Octavo (232 x 145 mm). With 12 steel-engraved plates by Thomas Onwhyn. Contemporary calf, red and brown spine labels, spine decorated in gilt, French fillets on covers with gilt cornerpieces, board edges gilt, gilt floral tooling on turn-ins, green endpapers, top edge gilt, others untrimmed. Couple of marks on covers, slight rubbing at extremities, oxidization to a couple of plates as usual, sparse foxing, else largely clean. A very good copy indeed.