Description
Cowper, William. The Diverting History of John Gilpin: Showing How He Went Farther Than He Intended, and Came Safe Home Again with Six Illustrations by George Cruikshank, Engraved on Wood by Thompson, Branston, Wright, Slader and White. London: Charles Tilt, 86, Fleet Street, 1828. First edition. Square 12mo, 13.5 cm. Collation: [Title, i-iv, pages 5-20; iv (advertisements)]. The illustrations occur at frontispiece, pages 7, 11, 16, 18 and 20. Stiff printed original wrapper bound in. Advertisements for prints on India paper on back cover. Cohn, 169. Bound in quarter brown calf with marbled boards, gilt lettered calf spine label, worn at the extremities.
This copy has the bookplate of Nathan Comfort Starr. There is a note on the front flyleaf : “Nathan C. Starr the gift of O. S. Chambers, March 1949.” Also on the front flyleaf, the ink signature of noted psychiatrist Dr. Hubert J. Norman, dated 1939. On the front cover of the original wrapper is the presentation notation of one “Miss M. Smith, JT.” On the verso of the re-backed original front wrapper is the ink notation in a feminine hand, “Mary Smith given her by Joseph Thomas 1828.” Spotting, but a copy with an interesting and distinguished provenance. A bookseller’s note mentions this copy sold at auction in 1928 for $22.50.
