Tally Ben (3 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. TALLY-Ho Ben [ie ALKEN Henry] (illustrator). 1st Edition. The First of Alken's coloured Books, combining humour, sporting culture, and horse-riding satire. Oblong folio, in half morocco over grey cloth (by Riviere & Sons), gilt tooling, gilt titles to morocco label. Spine, raised bands, gilt tooling & titles, rubbed along edges. Internally, engraved title page, followed by seven lively hand coloured plates of hunters and horses and their mishaps, plates dated 1815, & watermarked J Whatman 1819, red marbled endpapers, t.e.g., book labels to fpd ( Charles Cooper Townsend & Charles C Auchincloss). A lovely copy. A rejoinder to Sir Robert Frankland's Indispensable accomplishments, London, 1811. (251*350 mm). (Tooley 44. Schwerdt 1, p. 20. Bobins 747. Not listed in Abbey Life) Plates are: Engraved title page 1. Going along a slapping pace; 2. Topping a flight of Rails 3. Charging an Ox-fence. 4. Got in and getting out. 5. Facing a Brook 6. Swishing at a Rasper, 7. Returning Home in Triumph. Title continues:In looking over that very amusing work call'd Indispensable accomplishments sign'd Billesdon Coplow with which I was very much delighted but could not forbear remarking that he consider'd it only necessary that the horse should come well into the next field, charge and ox fence, go in and out clever, face a brook & swish at a rasper he does not mention that to do all that kind of thing it is necessary he should be mounted by a rider of judgment and courage. I have undertaken beging[sic] his pardon to mount well qualified horses with unqualified riders and to shew the figure those horses are likely to cut during the day. As an early coloured-plate satire of riding culture and horse-sports, it offers modern viewers insight into early 19th-century sporting and social attitudes.

FIRST EDITION. Oblong folio. (28.5 x 39 cm). Handsomely bound by Riviere in half red morocco over red cloth, sides gilt ruled, gilt lettering to spine, marbled endpapers. Engraved title page and 7 full page hand-coloured engraved plates. Slightly rubbed at corners and head and tail of spine, generally very clean and fresh, all plates excellent, generally very good.

Scarce Misery in the Army [ALKEN, Henry] TALLY-HO, Ben. Military Discoveries or, The Miseries of campaigning in a series of seven plates being Hints to Young Officers. London: S & J Fuller, March 24, 1819. Oblong quarto (10 1/8 x 14 inches; 257 x 355 mm). Seven aquatint plates, uncolored, loose as issued and housed in a modern cloth portfolio with gilt-lettered black morocco title label and silk ribbon ties. Without title-page, as issued. A rare and biting Regency military satire, almost certainly drawn by Henry Alken, here working under the pseudonym Ben Tally-Ho. In seven sharply observed scenes, the series dismantles the romantic expectations of young officers by presenting campaigning not as glory, but as discomfort, humiliation, danger, and farce. The plates - issued individually rather than as a bound book - follow a newly commissioned officer through the realities of military life: sodden bivouacs, enforced family "reparations," transport-ship torments, battlefield mishaps, perilous dispatch riding, sudden night alarms, and ignominious capture by enemy foragers. Alken's genius lies in his ability to balance caricatural humor with genuine physical jeopardy, offering a satirical yet unmistakably truthful portrait of post-Napoleonic soldiering. This work is exceptionally rare. OCLC/KVK records only three institutional holdings worldwide (University of London, Brown University, and the University of Michigan). The last recorded auction appearance was in 1961, more than half a century ago. Significantly, the series is absent from Tooley, Abbey, and the Le Vivier Library catalogue, the most comprehensive Alken collection ever assembled, underscoring its extreme scarcity and peripheral survival outside standard reference corpora. Though often cited in references in a hand-colored state, the present example survives uncolored, a format consistent with early issue or economical distribution, and increasingly rare in its own right. As an ephemeral print series rather than a conventional book, survival was never intended. A remarkable and elusive Alken military suite - of great appeal to collectors of Regency satire, British military iconography, and rare sporting prints - representing one of the sharpest anti-romantic statements on army life produced in early nineteenth-century graphic art. The Plates: 1. In tasting the joys of bivouac you DISCOVER that in many parts of the Service the elegance of costume are not so much attended to. 2. On getting into a love affair, you DISCOVER that the numerous parts of the family assisted by some professional gentlemen are determined to revenge the supposed injury. 3. Having been but little time on board the Transport you DISCOVER that after your many lessons and long patience on riding you are but ill qualified to ride the Wooden Horse with any chance of comfort to yourself. 4. On recovering from a swoon you DISCOVER it was occasioned by your horse being shot under you. 5. Having volunteered to carry dispatches through the Enemy's Country you DISCOVER that you have a chance of amusement all the way in observing repeated parties of Gentlemen who are out Man Shooting. 6. Being awoke by a violent noise, and rushing from your quarters, you DISCOVER your Colonel who commands you, immediately to resist a serious and unexpected attack made on the Camp by the Enemy, withut waiting for any additoinal Clothes. 7. Going to dinner at a neighboring Vila, you are interrupted by a party of the enemy's foragers, who after stripping you of Pelisses, great Coats &C. you DISCOVER they are determined to carry you to their quarters some thirty miles ahead. Not part the Le Vivier Library catalogue, the most renowned collection of Alken. Not in Tooley. Not in Abbey. Bobbins 340 (colored); Army Museums Ogilby Trust Index to British Military Costume Prints, 1500-1914, no. 44 (colored); Sterling Library IV, 24; Widener sale, November 28th, 1944, #10 (colored).