Skip to content

Secure Checkout

Website Secured with 256-bit TLS Encryption
Subtotal: $4,750.00
Shipping: $4.50
$0.00
Donation Amount: $0.00
Total: $4,754.50
4 - 6 days
7 - 14 days

All fields are required unless marked optional.

Add Shipping Note
  • Visa
  • Mastercard
  • American Express
  • Discover
  • Paypal
  • Apple Pay
  • Google Pay

Verified and Secured. Guaranteed.

Website Secured with 256-bit TLS Encryption
Please select your payment method from the following list:
Click the button to checkout with PayPal.
You will be charged $4,754.50 when completing this purchase.

Cart Totals

Subtotal: $4,750.00
Shipping: $4.50
: $0.00
Donation Amount: $0.00
Total: $4,754.50

You are about to purchase:

Eccentric Excursions or Literary & Pictorial Sketches of Countenance, Character & Country, in different parts of England & South Wales. Interspersed with Curious Anecdotes. Embellished with upwards of One Hundred Characteristic & Illustrative Prints

Eccentric Excursions or Literary & Pictorial Sketches of Countenance, Character & Country, in different parts of England & South Wales. Interspersed with Curious Anecdotes. Embellished with upwards of One Hundred Characteristic & Illustrative Prints by Woodward, George Moutard

7 to 14 days for delivery
Standard Shipping: $4.50
Details
$4,750.00
( US$)
Seller: White Fox Rare Books and Antiques
Title
Eccentric Excursions or Literary & Pictorial Sketches of Countenance, Character & Country, in different parts of England & South Wales. Interspersed with Curious Anecdotes. Embellished with upwards of One Hundred Characteristic & Illustrative Prints
Author
Woodward, George Moutard
Seller
White Fox Rare Books and Antiques (United States)
Condition
Good
Description
London: Allen & West (Sometimes Allen & Co.), 1796. First Edition. Contemporary Full Straight-Grained Morocco. Good. George Moutard Woodward.. A funny tour of the English shires or counties outside of London, and including Wales. Woodward may not have had quite the artistic mastery of Rowlandson, but his imagery has a flair that will linger, and in many of the cases his point jumps out of the picture, with no caption needed. And with his ambitious panorama of rural English society, it's almost as if he transports us there to the point that we can smell and hear his characters and imagine us there. In our view, an indispensable resource for anyone interested in life and culture in Georgian England. 4to. 26.5 by 21.5 cm. iv, 217, [1] pp. Illustrated with engraved title and 100 humorous hand-colored plates (on 99 leaves), 3 of which are folding, by Isaac Cruikshank, a contemporary of Rowlandson and father of George and Robert Cruikshank. Last paginated page has Errata, and unpaginated page following has directions to the binders for placement of the plates (and the Table of Contents placement also). Caricatures and early cartoons here could be sharp, acerbic or gentle. Many glow with whimsy, and all should bring a smile to virtually anyone. There are several formats for the illustrations, with that format in a non-systematic way evolving as one pores forward in the book. The earlier plates include most of the multi-cell plates, or the ones with several discrete, if related, illustrations on the page. There are also many more illustrations that are contained in oblong ovals or circles. Most of the scenes with many characters, the individual characters hence drawn to a smaller scale, are here. In the later part of the book the figures are generally fewer, but drawn larger, and less fussiness to the drawing. The artist, Woodward, is more economical, and more confident or trusting of his vision, and the humor comes through more directly. We are not suggesting that Woodward did the artwork in the consecutive order the same as the book's chronology. The style evolution is not a strict progression by any means, but it is indisputably discernible. The FEP has a small decorative of Valentine Hollingsworth -- it has a gilt stag vignette above the name. Lovely contemporary straight-grained red morocco bindinbg with quintessential Georgian gilt decoration with a variety of bands, with rinceaux rolls, Grecian ornamental influences, floral and geometric motives, diagonal ribbon striped columns, starburst-like devices, etc. Our words do not give it justice. Also turn-ins, raised bands that are squared off, gilt lettering on the spine, and on the boards, the inner rectangle, had blindstamped decoration as opposed to gilt. The gilt on the cover is geneally a bid faded, and there are a few small black stains, rubbed joints, darkening of the red on the spine, etc., but without all these shortcomings, the binding remains most attractive. While the text block is tight, the leaves are often heavily age toned with a considerable amount of soiling to boot. Some of the soiling could be cleaned, for sure, but at present the copy has a grubbiness about it, and we think one should not expect to seriously diminish that. There are certainly pages that are on the cleaner side of things, but the ones that are what linger more in the mind. The offsetting from the plates is also more pronounced generally speaking than desirable and compared to other copies of the work we've handled. There are other imperfections such as short closed tears, but these are comparatively minor points. The copy's table of contents was places sloppily at an angle. This has nothing to do with the book's upkeep once issued, but it was not the most diligently crafted copy as well, we would posit.

Hang on… we’re fetching the requested page.