About this Item
195 x 121 mm. (7 3/4 x 4 3/4"). Three volumes. Pleasing contemporary polished calf, gilt, for Brentano's of New York (stamped on verso of front free endpaper), covers with French fillet border, azured circles at corners, raised bands, spine attractively gilt in compartments featuring a central floral spring within a strapwork oval, curling cornerpieces, brown morocco label, marbled endpapers all edges gilt. Original buckram front covers with gilt pictorial designs bound in at rear. English with frontispiece, tailpiece, and 48 illustrations, after drawings by John Leech; "Latin with 54 illustrations in text, and eight engraved plates after drawings by Leech; "Arithmetic" with 48 illustrations (including title page vignette), by A. H. Forrester (who worked under the pseudonym "Alfred Crowquill"). Houfe, pp. 367-68 ("English"); p. 273 ("Arithmetic"). â Spines a little darkened, joints and extremities a bit rubbed, minor scratches and abrasions to boards, contents faintly foxed, other trivial imperfections, but a once quite pretty and still very presentable set, the text generally clean and fresh, the decorative bindings solid, and with an appealing shelf appearance. This is an attractively bound compendium of school humor for readers young and old. "English Grammar" is replete with jokes and puns playing off the vagaries and idiosyncrasies of that subject. In "Latin Grammar," the author plays with that classical languageâ "which in his day was a regular and often painful part of a young scholar's curriculumâ "to create linguistic puns and bloopers. For readers whose Latin is a bit rusty, the funniest part of the book will perhaps be the illustrations of schoolboy life, featuring gangling teachers and impish youths. Percival Leigh (1813-89) became friends with John Leech (1817-64) when the two were attending medical school. They found they both had a greater liking for comedy than for doctoring, and Leigh turned to humorous writing, while Leech became an illustrator, contributing the sketches to most of Leigh's books. Both were associated with the quintessentially British journal "Punch" almost from its inception. Inspired by the success of the first two works here, "Comic Arithmetic" is a medley of satirical witticisms that uses mathematical terms such as "equality" and "division" as chapter headings in order to enable the author to comment on the ills of society. There are varying opinions about the identity of the author, but whoever he may be, he sometimes breaks into verse, taking aim indiscriminately at clergymen, lawyers, old maids, and ethnic minorities, and he asserts that everyone is motivated by self-interest. The drawings, in general, show a lively talent for caricature. The artist, Alfred Henry Forrester (1804-72), illustrated and sometimes wrote comic works under the pseudonym "Alfred Crowquill," a sobriquet he at first shared with his brother Charles Robert Forrester (1803-50). Alfred began as a journalist but studied art in order to illustrate his own works. He wrote children's books as well as comic sketches, and his illustrations were much in demand, appearing in "Punch" and other journals. Seller Inventory # ST18628d
Contact seller
Report this item
