1859 1stED bound by Root & Son - The Scouring of the (Uffington) White Horse Illustrated by Richard Doyle.

 

(description)

Author: Thomas Hughes; Richard Doyle (illustrator).
Title: The Scouring of the White Horse: Or, the Long Vacation Ramble of a London Clerk.
Publisher: Cambridge, Macmillan and Co., 1859. First Edition.
Language: Text in English.
Size: 7 " X 5.5 ". 
Pages: xv-244 pages.
Binding: Attractive and good binding by Root & Son (London) bindery in full polished blue calf leather with bright gilt rule and decorations to spine, six compartments, and five raised bands to spine with bright gilt details (hinges are worn and scuffed but still tight - as shown) under a protective removable mylar cover.  
Content: Very good content (bright, tight and clean, rare and very minimal light foxing  - as shown). Upper edge gilt.
Illustrations: Complete with the double-page frontispiece and all the beautiful in-text illustrations by Richard Doyle.

The book: Rare First edition of this book by Tomas Hughes. It is a fictionalized recounting of the 1857 scouring  (of Uffington White Horse) that he attended. The repairing and cleansing of the (Uffington) White Horse has been traditionally accomplished through semi-regular celebrations, called "scouring", occurring at approximately decade intervals, in which the locals came together in a festival atmosphere to clean and repair the chalk lines, at the same time participating in competitions, games, and apparently much beer.

The illustrator: Richard "Dickie" Doyle (18 September 1824 – 10 December 1883) was a British illustrator of the Victorian era. His work frequently appeared, amongst other places, in Punch magazine; he drew the cover of the first issue and designed the magazine's masthead, a design that was used for over a century.

The author: Thomas Hughes QC (20 October 1822 – 22 March 1896) was an English lawyer, judge, politician and author. He is most famous for his novel Tom Brown's School Days (1857), a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School, which Hughes had attended. It had a lesser-known sequel, Tom Brown at Oxford (1861).
Hughes had numerous other interests, in particular as a Member of Parliament, in the British co-operative movement, and in a settlement in Tennessee, USA, reflecting his values.