Description

Cruikshank, George, Phrenological Illustrations, or an Artist’s View of the Crainiological System of Doctors Gall and Spurzheim. London: Published for the artist by Frederick Arnold, 86, Fleet Street, E.C. 1873. Price Five Shillings, Plain; Seven and Sixpence, coloured. An oblong folio, 26.5 cm x 35.5 cm, bound in gilt-decorated full maroon morocco leather, raised bands, decorated and lettered spine.

Collation: [3 initial blanks; dedication page; a large signed original pen-and-ink sketch, with two additional sketches superimposed; Cruikshank’s preface to the 1873 edition; 2 pages of text; 6 full-pages of engravings; an original front cover to the first edition bound in after the plates; 3 concluding blanks] A presentation copy from George Cruikshank, with a page of original sketches bound into a signed custom binding by Sangorski and Suttcliffe, London.

Signed and inscribed: “To W[alter] H[ines] Page with the regard of Geo. Cruikshank, Jan. 12, 1875.” A unique variant of Cohn 178, and a presentation copy signed twice by Cruikshank, then a living legend, to the man who later served as the United States Ambassador to Great Britain during the First World War. There is a tag of John Howell, Importer, San Francisco. The hinges have been expertly repaired, a fine copy. Cruikshank’s rapier wit was never sharper than when lampooning the pseudo-science of phrenology. This large theatrically themed sketch references Cruikshank’s love for the theatre and for Shakespeare in the depiction of a phantasmagoria of characters.

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