I have been in the rare and antiquarian book business for over forty years; my family has been in the rare books business since 1876. Rare books are in my blood.
Eccentric Tales
London: James Robins and Co., 1827. Item #02575
Eccentric Cruikshank
[CRUIKSHANK, George, illustrator]. KOSEWITZ, W.F. von. Eccentric Tales. From the German of W.F. Von Kosewitz, with Illustrations by George Cruikshank, From Sketches by Alfred Crowquill. London: James Robins and Co., 1827.
First edition in book form, originally issued in four parts with five plates each. Octavo (8 7/8 x 5 1/4 in; 227 x 135 mm). 181, [1] pp. Twenty hand-colored aquatint engravings, bound as a suite at front. Quires L and M have been transposed in error by the binder.
Original quarter claret cloth over drab boards, printed spine label. Untrimmed. Partially unopened. An occasional light spot of foxing, some wear to extremities as expected, and rubbing to spine label with slight losses. Withal, an excellent copy housed in a red cloth clamshell case.
"There is no list of plates, and the position of the plates differs in different copies..." (Cohn).
Charles Robert Forrester (1803-1850), who anonymously translated Kosewitz's Tales (but did not write them, as some claim), was an English lawyer and writer, and brother of Alfred Henry Forrester, who illustrated under the pseudonym Alfred Crowquill and here provided the sketches that Cruikshank based his engravings upon. We have been unable to locate an original edition in German.
Cohn 471.
Price: $1,500.00