CRUIKSHANK, George — My Sketch Book

London: Published for the Artist, by Charles Tilt, 1833. George Cruikshank's Masterpiece in Color The Exceptionally Rare Hand-Colored Parts Issue in the Original Nine Wrappers CRUIKSHANK, George, illustrator. My Sketch Book. London: Published for the Artist by Charles Tilt, 1833-1834. First edition in the original nine parts. Oblong quarto (7 5/8 x 11 1/8 inches; 194 x 283 mm.). Hand-colored etched pictorial title-page (issued with Part VI) and thirty-six superb hand-colored etched plates, some full-page and many containing multiple subjects. Original tissue guards retained throughout. Nine original parts in their original drab printed wrappers. Part I detached from wrappers; Part II with substituted wrappers from Part V; Part III detached from wrappers; Part V with the variant rear wrapper advertising Don Quixote Illustrated; Part VII with a light stain (4 3/4 x 4 3/4 inches) on the front wrapper. The second plate in Part V (The Worship of Wealth) in the second state, with the money-bag forming the coachman's head lettered GOLD rather than OGDL. Part VII detached (but present), a few wrappers lightly soiled, rear wrappers of Parts V and VI trimmed very slightly short at the fore-margin. Some light wear to the spines, but with the exception of the substituted wrappers to Part II. Overall an excellent example of this exceptionally scarce work in the original parts. Housed in an early felt-lined green cloth clamshell case, front cover and spine lettered in gilt. Case with light wear. One of the great caricature productions of nineteenth-century England and among the most desirable of all Cruikshank publications in original parts. Issued between 1833 and 1834, My Sketch Book contains some of the artist's most inventive and accomplished satirical designs, displaying the extraordinary range of his talent as caricaturist, social commentator, moralist, and comic draughtsman. The plates attack political corruption, social pretension, greed, drunkenness, gambling, and the growing worship of wealth, while simultaneously showcasing the exuberant imagination and technical brilliance that established Cruikshank as the leading British graphic satirist of his generation. Particularly memorable is the celebrated plate "The Worship of Wealth," in which a grotesque idol constructed from bulging money-bags is paraded through adoring crowds. Cruikshank's target is the increasing materialism of contemporary society, a theme that would occupy him throughout his career. Beneath the image appears the satirical verse: "Behold when Mammon walks or rides or stirs, Down bend the willing slaves-the curs! Hath Mammon half a million? Hath he more? The slaves not only worship-but adore!" The present copy is without the scarce printed address issued with Part IV, in which Cruikshank publicly complains of the conduct of his former publisher William Kidd. The hand-colored issue is considerably rarer than the uncolored issue and is seldom encountered complete in the original wrappers. Copies surviving in all nine parts, with the wrappers and accompanying address intact, are of the greatest rarity and highly prized by collectors of caricature, illustration, and nineteenth-century color printing. As Albert M. Cohn notes: "The first six numbers with a printed title, which was not issued with the parts, were published on December 1st, 1834, in cloth gilt." A magnificent survival from the golden age of British caricature and one of the most desirable of all Cruikshank's publications in original parts. Cohn, 181. .