[STEPHEN, George, and Robert CRUIKSHANK (illustrator).]
The Adventures of a Gentleman in Search of a Horse, by Caveat Emptor, Gent.
London, S. Bagster junior for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman and Samuel Bagster, 1835.
8vo, pp. xi, [1 (blank)], 336; with frontispiece and numerous woodcut illustrations in text; a good copy in near-contemporary English half calf with marbled sides, spine gilt in compartments between 4 raised bands with gilt red and green morocco lettering-pieces, marbled endpapers, sewn on 3 sunken cords; rubbed, damp-stain to spine, top-edge dust-stained; 20th-century ex-libris plate to upper pastedown.
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The Adventures of a Gentleman in Search of a Horse, by Caveat Emptor, Gent.
First edition of a humorous exposition of warranty law for horses, illustrated by Cruikshank. A lawyer prominent in the abolition of slavery, Sir George Stephen (1794-1879) practised as a solicitor and subsequently barrister in London, Liverpool, and Melbourne. Though purportedly written as an amusement for children, the work serves also as a treatise on warranty, with comments on case-law: ‘Even an attorney’s eyes are wearied with the incessant contemplation of white calf and red-lettered bindings; and it must be an agreeable novelty to find a circuit companion illustrated by Cruikshank’s engravings’. Credited simply to ‘Cruikshank’ in the preface, the illustrations are attributed to Robert Cruikshank (1789-1856), the elder brother of George.
Cf. Mellon 151 (1836 Philadelphia edition).
