The Comic History of England

[London]: Published at the Punch Office, 1848. First edition. Hardcover. Very Good. John Leech. 2 vol. 8vo. [3], vi-xii, [1], 2-320, [2]; [3], vi-viii, [3], 2-304, [2] pp. Later full smooth calf with gilt borders to the boards, gilt gauffering and detail to the interiors of the boards, spines in six compartments each with a red and a green morocco label lettered in gilt; all edges gilt. Marbled endpapers and pastedowns. Bound by Riviere & Son. Title pages printed in red and black. Lacks the half titles. Illustrated with a frontispiece in each volume, volume one with ten coloured steel etchings, and one hundred twenty woodcuts by John Leech; volume two with ten coloured steel etchings and one hundred twenty more woodcuts by Leech. With a late nineteenth-century bookseller's ticket on the front pastedown (C.H. Buckland of London). NCBEL 1143. Oxford DNB, Simon Houfe, "Leech, John". Tooley 244-245. Leech famously contributed illustrations to The Ingoldsby Legends and to Punch magazine, focusing on humorous renderings of people and events. A'Beckett's comic history spans from the arrival of Julius Caesar through George II's reign. He concludes with a description of the art, religion, and industry located on the British Isles. Leech's bright and beautiful illustrations bring A'Beckett's words to life, and the two together convey a ribald satire of the British Empire. Volume one shows some wear to its extremities including its front board slightly splayed at its top edge, volume one's front joint tender but binding is secure; early twentieth-century name on the recto of the frontispiece.