“A NEW DEPARTURE IN BOOK ILLUSTRATION”

(STOTHARD, Thomas) BRAY, Anna Eliza. The Life of Thomas Stothard, R.A., with Personal Reminiscences. London: John Murray, 1851. Expanded to two volumes. Square octavo, early 20th-century full burgundy crushed morocco, raised bands, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt. $1250.

First edition of Bray’s illustrated biography of her artist father-in-law, richly extra-illustrated with the addition of 57 engraved plates and expanded to two volumes, elegantly bound by Taffin.

Painter and book illustrator Thomas Stothard "owes his continuing reputation largely to his illustrations" (Ray), and many have been inserted into this extra-illustrated copy, along with a number of engraved portraits of his contemporaries. Among the prose works illustrated by him were novels by Fielding, Smollett, Richardson, and Sterne, Don Quixote, Gil Blas, Robinson Crusoe, the Arabian Nights… and Gulliver's Travels. These designs made a new departure in book illustration by their variety of invention, their literary sympathy, their spirit and their grace" (DNB); several of these have been inserted into this copy. Ray, The Illustrator and the Book in England, 19. Bookplate.

Fine condition.