ROWLANDSON, Thomas; COMBE, William

[Three Tours of Doctor Syntax, The]

London: R. Ackermann’s Repository of Arts, 1812. Item #05601

The Three Tours of Doctor Syntax
The Fitz Eugene Dixon Copy
In the Original Publishers Boards, Uncut.

[ROWLANDSON, Thomas, illustrator]. [COMBE, William]. The Tour of Doctor Syntax, in Search of the Picturesque. A Poem. London: Pub.…at R. Ackermann’s Repository of Arts, 1812.

First edition, first issue, with p. 1 reading “Chapter I” and with the plate “Dr. Syntax, Bound to a tree by Highwaymen” (facing p. 14) in the first state, with the girl riding the donkey with her right arm straight.

Octavo (9 3/4 x 6 1/8 inches; 248 x 155 mm.). iii, [1, printer’s imprint], [1, directions to the binder], [1, blank], 275, [1, blank], [4 pp , advertisements] pp. Engraved title with hand-colored aquatint vignette and thirty hand-colored aquatint plates. Plates watermarked 1808. Some light offsetting from plates to text only. The plates remarkably clean and fresh.

[Together with:]

[ROWLANDSON, Thomas, illustrator]. [COMBE, William]. The Second Tour of Doctor Syntax, in Search of Consolation; A Poem. Volume Second. London: Published by R. Ackermann, At the Repository of Arts, 1820.

First edition, second issue, with the plate facing p. 198 reading “Skimerton Riders.” Octavo (10 x 6 1/4 inches; 254 x 159 mm.). [4], [1, blank], 277, [1, blank] [1, directions to the binder, verso blank], pp. Twenty-four hand-colored aquatint plates. Wood-engraved vignette on p. 51. Expert facsimile label on spine. Plates watermarked 1819. Some light offsetting from plates to text only. The plates remarkably clean and fresh.

[And:]

[ROWLANDSON, Thomas, illustrator]. [COMBE, William]. The Third Tour of Doctor Syntax, in Search of a Wife, A Poem. London: Published at R. Ackermann’s Repository of Arts, [1821].

First edition. Octavo (10 x 6 1/4 inches; 254 x 159 mm.). [2], [1, directions to the binder], [1, blank], 279, [1, blank] [4, advertisements] pp. Engraved title with hand-colored aquatint vignette and twenty-four hand-colored aquatint plates. Hand-colored aquatint tail-piece vignette on p. 279. Plates watermarked 1821. Some light offsetting from plates to text only. The plates remarkably clean and fresh.

Publisher's gray boards uncut, expertly rebacked with the original spines laid down, original paper labels on volumes I & III, expert facsimile label supplied on volume II. Each volume double chemised in a green morocco solander box by H. Zucker, Philadelphia. Sides decoratively bordered in gilt, spines with five raised bands decoratively tooled and lettered in gilt in compartments, spines slightly faded. With the armorial bookplate of renowned collector Fitz Eugene Dixon on front paste-down of each volume.

A very fine set of the first editions, exceptionally rare in the original boards uncut.

William Combe (1741-1823), “prolific English writer of miscellaneous prose and satirical verse whose poem The Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque (1812) was one of the most popular books of early 19th-century England…Dr. Syntax was introduced in 1809 in The Poetical Magazine. Combe’s first Dr. Syntax book and its successors, The Second Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of Consolation (1820) and The Third Tour…in Search of a Wife (1821), satirize the many 18th- and early 19th-century writers whose ‘Tours,’ ‘Travels,’ and ‘Journeys’ were vehicles for sententious moralizing, uninspired raptures, and sentimental accounts of amorous adventures. The popularity of Combe’s work owed much to the illustrations of Thomas Rowlandson. Combe and Rowlandson also collaborated on The English Dance of Death (1815), which contains some of Combe’s best verse, and The Dance of Life (1816-17)” (Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature).

Fitz Eugene Dixon (1888-1982) Banker and book collector was married to Eleanor Widener, a member of the wealthy Philadelphia Widener family. His grandfather, George D. Widener, and uncle, the renowned book collector Harry Elkins Widener, died in the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic. The Dixons built "Ronaele Manor" ("Eleanor" spelled backward), an Elizabethan mansion, in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania.

Abbey, Life, 266 and 267; Bobins IV, 1359; Tooley 427, 428, and 429.

Price: $6,500.00