ROWLANDSON, Thomas; COMBE, William

[Three Tours of Doctor Syntax, The]

London: Pub.…at R. Ackermann’s Repository of Arts, 1812. Item #06524

The Three Tours of Doctor Syntax

[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 (8 15/16 x 5 5/8 inches; 227 x 143 mm.). iii, [1, printer’s imprint], [1, directions to the binder], [1, blank], 275, [1, blank] pp. Engraved title with hand-colored aquatint vignette and thirty hand-colored aquatint plates. Plates watermarked 1808.

[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, first issue, with the plate facing p. 198 reading “Skimerton Riders.” Octavo (9 x 5 11/16 inches; 229 x 144 mm.). [4], [1, directions to the binder], [1, blank], 277, [1, blank] pp. Twenty-four hand-colored aquatint plates. Wood-engraved vignette on p. 51.

[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 (9 x 5 5/8 inches; 229 x 147 mm.). [2], [1, directions to the binder], [1, blank], 279, [1, blank] pp. Engraved title with hand-colored aquatint vignette and twenty-four hand-colored aquatint plates. Hand-colored aquatint tail-piece vignette on p. 279.

Uniformly bound ca. 1940 by Bayntun of Bath (stamp-signed on the front turn-in) in full red scored calf. Covers decoratively bordered in gilt and blind, spines decoratively tooled in gilt in compartments with three morocco gilt lettering labels (two burgundy and one green), board edges and turn-ins decoratively tooled in gilt, all edges gilt, marbled endpapers. Stab holes visible on some plates. Short tear in the upper margin of N2 (pp. 91/92) and tiny paper flaw in the outer margin of Aa2 (pp. 179/180) of The Second Tour of Doctor Syntax. A few minor marginal stains. A very fine set of the rare first issues.

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).

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

Price: $3,500.00