PBA Galleries

3 volumes. v, 276; [v], 277; [iii], 279 pp. Two pictorial title pages, seventy-eight plates, and one tailpiece; all colored aquatints by Thomas Rowlandson (8vo) 23x14cm (9x5½") full straight-grain morocco, gilt-ruled, spines ornamented in gilt, gilt-lettered red and green morocco spine labels, gilt dentelles, a.e.g., by Rivière & Son. Seventh Edition of Volume One (the first in 1812); First Editions of Volumes Two and Three; Volume Two is in the second state. 

Laid into Volume One is a brief, undated ALs signed by Wm. Combe, asking after a sick friend and enclosing a copy of "Dr. S____." Combe's doggerel verses were written to accompany Rowlandson's plates depicting the adventures of a roving school-master, produced for a periodical published by Akermann. The two collaborators, who worked separately, began by satirizing the romantic zest for picturesque landscape championed by William Gilpin, but the wildly popular work--and its sequels--soon became a jovial ramble through all levels of English life. [Abbey, Life, 266 & 267 (Part One does not appear in the bibliography). Tooley 427, 428 & 427.]