ANONYMOUS. Scenes and sketches Of English life. [;] [;] A series of Narratives, Incidents, and Details Of Attraction and interest. Published by Reynolds and Son, Strand; And sold by all booksellers, N.D. [1834] [One, two, or three asterisks,] Price eight shillings. 3 Vols., lge.12mo; cancel prelims. in each volume, on slightly thicker paper; half-titles not called for; Preface leaf, conjugate with title leaf, printed ‘Scenes and sketches Of English life' (as though a half-title) on verso (the Preface, being evidently an afterthought, was printed on the verso of the intended half-title, this then being folded back behind the title-leaf); inserted engraved frontispiece in volumes one and three, none present, possibly none called for in volume two; final blank in volume one; pp.[iv]+349+[iii]; [iv]+355+[i (printer's imprint)]; [iv]+344; dark green bold-ribbed cloth, ruled, blocked, and embossed with lettering (v. note) blind on sides, blocked and lettered gilt on spine; end-papers coated yellow. Some end-papers foxed, with offsetting; frontispieces a little foxed, and lightly damp-stained at lower corners; otherwise a fine copy.

First edition, third (or fourth) issue of five (or six). Not in Sadleir, Wolff, Block, or Summers. Originally published in 1834, at 31s. 6d. the three volumes, in the same binding, without the frontispieces, and with a title-page reading: English scenes And English civilisation; Or Sketches and Traits In The nineteenth century. In three volumes. Smith, Elder and Co., Cornhill. Booksellers by appointment to their majesties, 1834. The three volumes collated: pp.[i-ii] title leaf, [iii]-iv author's Note (dated April, 1832), [v-vi] Second Note (dated March, 1834) recording a delay in publication, [vii-viii] fly-title, [1]-349 text, [350-352] blank; [i-ii] title leaf, [iii-iv] fly-title, [1]-355 text, [i] printer's imprint; [i-ii] title leaf, [iii-iv] fly-title, [1]-344 text; the fly-title in volume one reading ‘The neighbourhood Of Uppinghurst and Abberley', volumes two and three adding to this the sub-title ‘At the Beginning of the nineteenth century', the text then concluding, in all three volumes, with an epigraph. The second issue is the same as the first, except that the publisher's have added a frontispiece to each volume. These frontispieces (of Allan Cunningham, Lord Lytton, and Washington Irving, in all copies seen, all engraved by Roffe) have no connection whatsoever with the work, and obviously represent a job lot of plates left over from some other volume (possibly an Annual), which Smith, Elder decided to work off in an effort to make the book look more attractive and speed up what was evidently a very slow sale. The plates are found randomly distributed as between volumes in different sets, and it is by no means impossible that copies exist in which two (or even three!) volumes have the same plate. Subsequently the book was remaindered, and passed to Reynolds and Son, who issued it in the same binding, and with the same plates, but with cancel prelims. as described above, and with the three volumes offered separately at eight shillings each. The plate of Lytton, however, was evidently in short supply, and the latest copies bound up in this cloth may have been issued with plates present only of Cunningham and Irving. If this is so, then the present copy is such a one, for there is no sign of a plate ever having been present here in volume two. Later still, sets of sheets were bound up in a claret fine diaper cloth, similarly lettered and blocked, with the plates of Cunningham and Irving, but with an engraving of Mary Russell Mitford, also by Roffe, replacing that of Lytton. As is noted by Carter, Binding Variants in English Publishing 1820-1900, p.44, the binding of this book is of some interest in that it provides the only example he could quote of a book bearing a true binder's imprint on the sides: "This book has a blind band running round the sides on which, neatly raised and obviously part of the die for the whole border, occur the words J.J. SMITH. - BINDER. - GATE ST. These appear at the foot of the front cover and at the top, upside down, on the back." Carter hypothesises that this binding (of which he had only seen the Smith, Elder issue with plates) is secondary, since "its boldly ribbed cloth is infinitely improbable for 1834". Carter is wrong in this: Bogue's ‘Year Book of Facts in Science and Art' was published in just this cloth from its inception in 1839, the date very fortunately appearing on the spine, and there is no reason for assuming that the cloth design was new that year; whilst Ball, Victorian Publisher's Bindings, Plate 1, illustrates a copy of the ‘Carcanet' dating from 1830 in an apparently similar bold ribbed cloth (but with the ribs running horizontally instead of vertically). According to Ramsden, London Bookbinders, 1780-1840', Joseph James Smith was at 3 Gate Street and also at 26, Little Wild St. in 1832; in 1836 his address is given as 36, Little Wild Street (presumably larger premises to which he consolidated), and by 1840 he is at 5, Ivy Lane, after which the firm changed its style. In 1834-6 he might still well have been at 3 Gate Street, but he would hardly have made use of that address after his removal to 36, Little Wild Street in the last year, and this would seem to provide us with a limiting date for the latest binding up of the present work. In its final incarnation the book was issued, with the Reynolds prelims., in a binding of fine morocco cloth, blocked similarly to the earlier issues, but with the binder's imprint removed from the rules.

Click here to return to catalogue of books currently available