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 and IllustrativePrints

by Woodward, G[eorge] M[outard]

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Book Description

Published by Allen & Co., London:1801 [1 blank; v; 217 pages; errata and directions to the binders for placing the plates; 1 blank leaf] 26cm; quarto; engraved title page; plate design by Woodward, etching by Isaac Cruikshank the Elder. The frontispiece, published August 1, 1801, and one hundred text illustrations are hand-colored etchings. in this extraordinarily fine and complete copy. The images are very strong impressions, and their color is bright and fresh. This is a complete copy free from foxing, with the scarce double plates. Plate 60 is numbered as 59, and plate 59 is numbered as 60. Plate 12 has the watermark "1794 I. TAYLOR." Bound in full brown calf with finished gold mitred edges outside the covers, antique gold stamping inside bordering dark green end papers, the front cover showing some crackling along the top and right-hand edge, five raised bands, six finished spine panels in gold, pallets at the top and bottom, a small tail panel with the date 1801, with pages gilt-edged all around. This copy was rebacked and the original burnished gold back strip was preserved and laid down. This copy has the bookplate of a prior owner. A good-natured romp through the English counties of "Middlesex, Surry [sic], Kent, Berkshire, Somersetshire, Devonshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, and part of South Wales," observing with an experienced eye and a sharp nib the "vices or foibles" of the people who were "...seen through the eyes of a characteristic traveller divested of all common prejudice and tormenting ideas of inconvenience." As the author traveled, he made a conscious effort "...to conform to the manners of the places he may happen to visit." The three goals of his travel record were: "countenance, character and country." Raising caricature to the level of social commentary, Woodward, with Isaac Cruikshank's help, created a very interesting record of the places he visited as well as of the behavior of the English people he saw in those places. See: M.D. George 8929-8076; 9115-9155. (The copy that George referred to was bound in two volumes, text in Vol. I, prints in Vol. II.)

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