THE NINETEENT H CENTURY
A Description and History of the Volumes These two volumes comprise a remarkable unique copy of Gilbert Abbott à Beckett’s The Comic History of England, with 22 original drawings by John Leech in watercolour, pen ink and pencil, added to the 20 hand-coloured etchings and 200 woodcuts. The drawings are among Leech’s highly finished working studies for the project. 15 relate to the etched plates and 7 to woodcut illustrations. Leech’s only surviving child, Ada Rose Gillett (1854-1885), sold most, if not all, of these drawings to the famous bookseller, Walter T Spencer (died 1936), of 27 New Oxford Street (as is explained in an inscription in Spencer’s hand in Volume I). It is assumed that Spencer then arranged for the drawings to be bound into the volumes by the equally famous binder, Riviere & Sons, of 29-33 Heddon Street. Certainly, they are now in handsome gilded dark blue morocco bindings by Riviere, the original gilded purple cloth spine and covers being bound in at the end of each.
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However, a letter written on paper headed ‘57 Chester Square SW’ – the London address of the volumes’ one-time owner, Algernon Dunn Gardner – suggests that five of the drawings were added to the first volume at a later date. The notes on The Comic History of England are written by Alexander Beetles and David Wootton.
33 THE COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND Gilbert Abbott à Becket, The Comic History of England, London: Punch, 1847, 2 vols, first edition Extra-illustrated with 22 original drawings by John Leech in watercolour, pen ink and pencil, of various sizes Provenance: Walter T Spencer of 27 New Oxford Street, London; George Seton Veitch, of Friarshall, Paisley; Algernon Dunn Gardner of 57 Chester Square, London, and Denston Hall, Suffolk