ROWLANDSON, Thomas, in the style of; [COMBE, William, imitation of]

Adventures of Doctor Comicus, The

London: Printed for B. Blake, 1815. Item #02652

In The Original Printed Boards
The First Dr. Syntax Imitation

[ROWLANDSON, Thomas, in the style of]. [COMBE, William, imitation of]. The Adventures of Doctor Comicus, or the Frolicks of Fortune. A Comic Satirical Poem for the Squeamish & the Queer. In Twelve Cantos, by a Modern Syntax. London: Printed for B. Blake. n.d. [1815].

First edition. Octavo (8 7/8 x 5 1/4 in; 226 x 133 mm). [2], 269, [1] pp. Fifteen hand-colored engraved plates including frontispiece and extra-title in the style of Rowlandson.

Original printed boards uncut. Neatly rebacked preserving original spine label, new endpapers. Corners a little bumped and creased. Chemised and housed within a later quarter red morocco slipcase.

Scarce in original boards.

A clever and now uncommon parodic offshoot of the hugely successful Doctor Syntax series, consciously modeled on William Combe’s verse and Rowlandson’s visual idiom. Although neither Rowlandson nor Combe were directly involved, the book trades knowingly on their fame, adopting the familiar cantos, mock-heroic tone, and episodic structure that had made Doctor Syntax a publishing sensation in the previous decade.

Doctor Comicus follows its hapless protagonist through a sequence of misadventures and social embarrassments, using broad humor, caricature, and topical satire to skewer manners, pretensions, and eccentricities of Regency life. The hand-colored plates - spirited, energetic, and intentionally Rowlandsonian - form an essential part of the joke, reinforcing the book’s role as both homage and spoof.

The first of many imitations of Combe's Dr. Syntax. Another edition was published in 1820 with only twelve colored plates. Reissued in 1828 by Jaques & Wright using the same sheets as the first edition but with their name and later date to titlepage.

Abbey, Life 255. Tooley 431. Prideaux, p. 334.

Price: $1,250.00