1851 Rare First Edition - Cruikshank - The World's Show, 1851 Great Exhibition or, The Adventures Of Mr And Mrs Sandboys And Family.

This beautiful book has been sold...
Search for other similar books from our bookseller friends!

 

---

 (Description) 

Author: Mayhew, Henry. (Illustrator, George Cruikshank).
Title: The World's Show, 1851; or, The Adventures of Mr and Mrs Sandboys and Family, who came up to London to Enjoy themselves, and to see the Great Exhibition.
Publisher: London: David Bogue, 1851. First Edition. First Edition in book form after the original serialization.
Language: Text in English. 
Size: 9 " X 6 ".
Pages: 242 pages.
Binding: Attractive, beautiful, and fine binding finely bound in brown half morocco leather (probably by Riviere) (hinges fine) under a protective removable mylar cover. Upper edge gilt.
Content: Very good content (bright, tight, and clean, beautiful bookplate of EJ Wheeler the famous Punch illustrator on the first endpaper - as shown). 
Illustrated: Complete with the pictorial title page and 10 engraved plates by Cruikshank, 9 of them folding, all plates except the title page are handsomely backed with linen.

The book: Rare and attractive first edition of this Victorian comic novel - The World's Show, 1851; or, The Adventures of Mr and Mrs Sandboys and Family, who came up to London to Enjoy themselves, and to see the Great Exhibition. George Cruikshank supplied the beautiful folding illustrations for this book!  Real first issue with error in pagination - skips p63-64. In subsequent issues, a leaf of advertisements is inserted to make good the omission on the numbering of the pages" (Cohn, page 161).  This Victorian novel is a succession of mishaps that overtook the Sandboys family on a visit to London to see the Great Exhibition of 1851.  The central figure in Mayhew's narrative, Christopher Sandboys, a gentleman farmer from the Lake District, never gets to visit the exhibition at all, but Mayhew vividly conveys the excitement generated by the exhibition both among Londoners and visitors from elsewhere in England and from overseas, and his portrayal of day-to-day life in London in the summer of 1851 as it affected individuals in the Sandboys' family's social class, although milked for comic effect, remains well worth reading. 

The author: Henry Mayhew (25 November 1812 – 25 July 1887) was an English journalist, playwright, and advocate of reform. He was one of the co-founders of the satirical magazine Punch in 1841, and was the magazine's joint editor, with Mark Lemon, in its early days. He is also known for his work as a social researcher, publishing an extensive series of newspaper articles in the Morning Chronicle that was later compiled into the book series London Labour and the London Poor (1851), a groundbreaking and influential survey of the city's poor.

The illustrator: George Cruikshank (27 September 1792 – 1 February 1878) was a British caricaturist and book illustrator, praised as the "modern Hogarth" during his life. His book illustrations for his friend Charles Dickens, and many other authors, reached an international audience.
overs. 

The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition (in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held), was an international exhibition that took place in Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to 15 October 1851. It was the first in a series of World's Fairs, exhibitions of culture and industry that became popular in the 19th century. The event was organized by Henry Cole and Prince Albert, husband of Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom.