Our Antediluvian Ancestors

London : C. Arthur Pearson, 1903. 1st Edition 1st Printing. Hardcover. Good/No Jacket. 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall. First edition, first printing 1903. Hardback book is square. Dark red boards have lightly marking, with rubbing to edges, joints and to bumped corners. Upper board gilt titles still quite bright and unmarked Spine has dulled and rubbed titles, and heavy rubbing to spine ends. Text block is on the whole clean. Some pages have a turned corner, the binding is starting at Illustration18. The text page for illustration 21 has a tape repaired 50mm tear, one gathering (signature) has splits to the top half of the pages, however none are loose. The text page for illustration 5 has some child's pencil markings that do not detract. The illustration 1 has childs brown coloured pencil colouring in. There is a previous owners very charming gift inscription to the FEP, dated Christmas 1931 (mentioning it's scarcity). The pages are mostly clean, with the odd mark or two. Feels read. Good condition. No jacket. Note we do not use stock images, the book pictured is the book described. A scarce and interesting title, on large paper featuring cartoons of cavemen with a were that first printed in the New York Evening Journal, and other Mr. W. R. Hearst newspapers. Each cartoon, is printed opposite a brief humorous text page describing the illustration. With each set printed in a separate pair of pages, resulting in two blank pages between each set. Opper was a prominent artist among the first wave of American cartoonists. A complete and scarce book especially with the gilt upper board illustration.