[250 Copies only. by [ROTCH (Benjamin)] - 1893

Manners & Customs Of the French. Fac-simile of the scarce 1815 edition. With ten whole-page Amusing and prettily tinted Illustrations Printed from the original copper-plates (Copper plates now destroyed). [November,] 1893, London: The Leadenhall Press, Ltd: 50, Leadenhall Street, E.C. Henry Sotheran & Co., 140, Strand and 37, Piccadilly, W. Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Ltd: New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 743 & 745, Broadway. Demy 8vo; half-title not called for; blank and limitation leaf precede frontispiece; finely hand-coloured frontispiece and nine plates; facsimile of 1815 title-page in text; 16pp Leadenhall Press catalogue, on text-paper, bound in at end; pp.[viii]+iv+43+[i (blank)]+[16]; half glazed natural fine linen, Saxe-blue boards, two cream paper labels printed in black on spine, one on front cover; fore- and lower- edges uncut; grey silk marker. Small fox-spots to two or three extreme inner margins, but a virtually fine copy. Number 148 of a total edition of 250. Edited by Henry Sotheran who found a copy along with the copper-plates amongst the effects of the original publisher, his father, Thomas Southeran, who attributed the text to “Benjamin Rotch, a Middlesex Magistrate”. Though merely described as ‘tinted’ on the title-page, the cover labels describe the plates as ‘hand-coloured’. The original title-page named the artist as ‘M.S.’. There is no list of plates, but they are tipped-in to face pp.4, 8, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 34, and 38. Young, 1893.13, following the title-page description of the plates. All books listed by Robert Temple are first editions unless otherwise stated.