The Comic Offering; or Ladies' Melange of Literary Mirth

London: Smith, Elder, and Co, 1835. Complete run of The Comic Offering, the first British humor periodical written, edited, and illustrated by a woman. "Elegantly bound in Morocco, uniquely embossed and gilt," this illustrated gift annual was the work of young Louisa Henrietta Sheridan (1810-1841): "we have not hitherto had, among the catalogue of annual publications, one of a lively nature, exclusively intended for the Boudoir, Drawing-room, and Ladies' Library." While the inaugural volume was written entirely by Sheridan, later volumes featured contributions from popular authors like Agnes Strickland, Susanna Moodie, Thomas Haynes Bayly, Mary Russell Mitford, Thomas Dibdin, and Isabel Hill, providing a more expansive sense of what "women's humor" signified in the early Victorian era. The selections run heavily to puns and nonsense, with many of the narrative pieces poking fun at the rituals of courtship and family life. In "The Archery Meeting," a young woman describes the sport as a transparent pretext for flirtation on everyone's part: "here comes a slander, my bosom which harrows -- / Our glances were surer, they said, than our arrows." This copy of the 1831 volume bears the ownership signature of Elizabeth Brown Coffin Greenly (1771-1839), Regency diarist, painter, and book collector. The volumes for 1832, 1833, and 1834 were presented by sporting author Robert Smith Surtees (1805-1864) to his sisters Elizabeth and Fanny as holiday gifts. Faxon, Literary Annuals and Gift Books, 1173-1177. See also Tamara Hunt, "Louisa Henrietta Sheridan's 'Comic Offering' and the Critics," Victorian Periodicals Review 29:2 (1996). A very good set, in the original publisher's morocco signed by De La Rue. Five 12mo volumes, measuring 6 x 3.75 inches: xii, 351, [1]; xii, 372, [6, ads]; xii, 347, [1]; xii, 346, [2]; xii, 345, [1], [26, ads]. Publisher's maroon morocco signed by De La Rue, embossed with cover design of Punch as puppeteer, spines embossed with comic faces and lettered in gilt, yellow coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Engraved pictorial frontispieces and extra titles; all volumes illustrated with engraved plates and vignettes in text. Ownership signature of Lady Elizabeth Greenly in Volume I; Volumes II-IV inscribed by Robert Surtees to his sisters; Volume IV with bookseller label (Edward Baker, Birmingham, "the most Expert Bookfinder Extant.") Volume II bound without engraved title and final illustration leaf; Volume III bound without frontispiece; two signatures in volume V mis-bound, text complete. Light shelfwear to bindings with expert repair to spine ends and corners, occasional spotting and edgewear to text.