The Life of George Cruikshank. In Two Epochs.

JERROLD, Blanchard. [George Cruikshank].

$2,000.00

Item Number: 137182

London: Chatto and Windus, 1882.

First edition of the definitive biography of famed illustrator and satirist George Cruikshank. Octavo, bound in full crushed levant morocco by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, triple gilt ruling to the front and rear panels, gilt turn-ins and inner dentelles, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt, illustrated. In fine condition. Bookplates.

Praised as the "modern Hogarth" during his lifetime, British caricaturist and book illustrator George Cruikshank was, for a time, England's most popular satirist. He illustrated numerous works for close friend Charles Dickens including Sketches by Boz (1836), The Mudfog Papers (1837–38) and Oliver Twist (1838). Cruikshank's early work was caricature; but in 1823, at the age of 31, he started to focus on book illustration. He illustrated the first, 1823 English translation (by Edgar Taylor and David Jardine) of Grimms' Fairy Tales, published in two volumes as German Popular Stories