PROUT (Captain). Bob Norberry; Or, Sketches from the note book Of An Irish reporter. With numerous illustrations By Henry Macmanus, Esq., A.R.H.A., And other eminent artists. Dublin: Published by James Duffy, 23, Anglesea-street, 1844, Demy 8vo; half-title not called for; etched frontispiece and vignette title-page each signed ‘W.H. Holbrooke 4 Crow St Dublin' (the only instance we can recall of an artist's address being included in his plate!), with tissue guard, precede letterpress title-page; ten etched plates after (and sometimes by) Macmanus, six after J. O'Malley; pp.viii+360; deep scarlet morocco cloth, ruled and blocked blind on sides, blocked pictorially gilt on front cover, blind on back cover, blocked pictorially gilt, lettered deep scarlet through gilt, on spine (title and subtitle quarter- to half- way down, ‘DUFFY DUBLIN' at extreme tail); t.e. uncut, others mainly trimmed; end-papers coated yellow. Slight marking of covers due almost entirely to the too deep impress of the blind blocking, and resultant paste action; slight offsetting from one plate; otherwise a fine copy. Scarce thus.

Stab holes show that the present copy was, at least as regards the early gatherings, bound up from the parts. Sadleir, 77, recording a copy in plum ribbed cloth, pictorially blocked in gold, but having only the frontispiece and vignette title, and seven plates (all by Macmanus); Wolff, 5665, recording a copy identical with ours except that he describes all the plates as being by Macmanus (which is presumably a mistake), and that it is in tan horizontally ribbed cloth, blocked (non-pictorially) in blind on front and back, blocked and lettered in gold on spine, with pale yellow end-papers, and bound wholly from the parts. The Wolff copy is almost certainly, as he suggests, a later issue - though it might also be, just conceivably, a publisher's casing supplied cheaply to purchasers of the parts. The Sadleir copy was presumably defective - though it may in fact have been so issued, the plates having been printed short - and it is worth noting in this context that the publisher avoids any mention of how many plates there should be! If the Sadleir copy were so issued, it must at least have been a later issue, bound when the plates were beginning to run short. There is (obviously!) no list of plates, but they are tipped in to face pp.29, 32, 53, 63, 77, 88, 96, 113, 144, 153, 163, 191, 206, 221, 225, and 247. Sadleir lists this title under ‘Authorship Unknown'; Wolff under ‘Prout'; Block, p.138, under ‘Levey'. From the Preface:- "The Reporter is an Irishman, intimately acquainted with the habits, character, and social conditions of the Irish people; and whilst writers from the sister country, who know less of Ireland than they do of the Kalmuck tribes of Russian Tartary, have produced books which pretend to be faithful pictures of Irish life and character, although they are no more than hideous caricatures, calculated to excite feelings of hatred and contempt, it may not be amiss that one who knows the country well, and has mixed with the various classes of Irish society, should attempt to give a faithful history of a variety of scenes, where all the passions that actuate the human heart are developed, and from which the true condition of a people, and the just administration of the law with regard to them, may be judged. Those who have written of the Irish have, for some sinister purpose, most generally held them up as objects of pity and scorn; or they have been deplorably ignorant of the great philosophical maxim, that the race to which a people belongs, their primitive constitution, and their instincts, form the great key to their actions and their motives; and that it is because rulers do not legislate in the spirit of race, laws are rendered nugatory, and the people demoralised and miserable."

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