“BRILLIANT POWERS OF ENTERTAINMENT”

(HOOK, Theodore). Jack Brag. London: Richard Bentley, 1837. Three volumes. Small octavo, early 20th-century three-quarter tan calf gilt, raised bands, burgundy morocco spine labels, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt. $850.

First editions of Hook’s anonymous satirical work, handsomely bound by Bayntun.

A well-known wit and prolific author writing in the early 19th-century, Hook was greatly admired for "his brilliant powers of entertainment." An accomplished satirist, "the exuberance of his impetuous fun sweeps away the studied and polished sarcasms of refined satirists like Moore; he hurls ridicule and invective right and left with a Titanic vigor so admirable in itself as a manifestation of energy that we almost forget that after all it is only mud that he is showering" (DNB). Allibone, 876. Bookplates laid in. Small bookseller tickets.

Volume II with minor expert paper repairs to the first dozen or so leaves. A very attractive set of volumes.