“A FASCINATING AND DETAILED PICTURE OF AN AGE IN TRANSITION”

EGAN, Pierce. The Life of an Actor. London: Pickering & Chatto, 1892. Octavo, early 20th-century full orange morocco gilt, raised bands, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt. $450.

Later edition of Egan’s celebrated 1825 work, with 27 hand-colored plates faithful to the original engravings of Theodore Lane and numerous in-text illustrations, handsomely bound by Whitman Bennett.

"A prominent Regency voice and a significant antecedent of the Victorian social investigators and London novelists," Pierce Egan offered "a fascinating and detailed picture of an age in transition" (Literary Encyclopedia). Following the "instantaneous and unprecedented success" of his Life in London, Egan published The Life of an Actor. "Well illustrated by Theodore Lane, and dedicated to Edmund Kean," it follows the dramatic adventures of its thespian hero Peregrine Proteus (DAB). Initially issued as a serial beginning in 1824, Life of an Actor was completed and first published as a book in 1825. This is the first edition of its re-issue in a form true to the original, with 27 plates faithfully facsimiled and hand-colored. Bookplate.

A fine copy, handsomely bound.