John Bull Vol XVII No. 879 Monday, October 16, 1837; [The Vicar of Wrexhill]

London: Hook, Theodore, 1837. First Edition. Very good. A Very Good copy of this first edition, first printing, composed of large sheets of paper printed on both sides, each with a vertical fold to form pages disbound from a larger volume and from each other and still in the Publisher's original self-wrappers. The publication contains information about commercial markets and prices, Financial, Ecclesiastical, Naval and Military, Court, Police, Literature, and International news, as well as Society information, notable Births, Marriages and Deaths, as well as other matters. This issue includes a notice of work by Dickens's Barnaby Rudge, and work by Mrs. Trollope. A larger notice makes particular notice of "The Vicar of Wrexhill" by Mrs. Trollope calling it "... beyond all question the best and most striking novel of the season. By it the author has laid another stone in the edifice of an enlarged reputation and an enduring fame...it will be read and run after, and admired, by all who care for a feast of good wholesome moral pointing literature which reflects on society, and, by satirizing vice (more especially when it is under the mask of virtue), tends to improve the world. [Per Wikipedia: "John Bull is the name of a succession of different periodicals published in the United Kingdom during the period 1820–1964.[1] In its original form, a Sunday newspaper published from 1820 to 1892, John Bull was a champion of traditionalist conservatism. From 1906 to 1920, under Member of Parliament Horatio Bottomley, John Bull became a platform for his trenchant populist views. A 1946 relaunch by Odhams Press transformed John Bull magazine into something similar in style to the American magazine The Saturday Evening Post. All versions of the publication intended to cash in on John Bull, the national personification of the United Kingdom in general and England in particular.[2] (In political cartoons and similar graphic works, John Bull is usually depicted as a stout, middle-aged, country-dwelling, jolly and matter-of-fact man.)" he original John Bull was a Sunday newspaper established in the City, London EC4, by Theodore Hook in 1820. Under Hook, John Bull was a champion of high Toryism and the virulent detractor of Queen Caroline. Witty criticism and pitiless invective secured it a large circulation, and Hook derived, for the first year at least, an income of £2,000. Hook was arrested, however, on account of his debt to the state, and was confined to a sponging-house from 1823 to 1825. This iteration of John Bull lasted until July 1892, although subsequent identically named publications were cited in 1899 and 1903. A Very Good copy.