[SCOTTISH (?) COSTUME BOOK - UNRECORDED]. Dresses of Different Nations or The Companion of History

[Edinburgh?], 1830. Very good. Small octavo (185 x 120 mm), contemporary cloth-backed stiff wrappers (a little worn), inside front cover with small binder's ticket of "Campbell, Stationer & Bookbinder, 17 Leith Street, Edinburgh," contemporary presentation inscription to free-endpaper "Miss L. J. Wilson from Papa Pa." CONTENTS: engraved title and [37] engraved plates of ethnic types, all with captions in the image; one plate ("Chinese lady of quality") with two ink spots in the blank upper and lower margins, pencilled annotation to verso of same plate ("My Dear Willa, that is a pictur" [sic]) and remains of a small blue circular seal (?); verso of "A Georgian" plate with short tape repair. Contemporary quarter cloth over drab wrappers (a little creased). Minor toning and signs of use, inherent in children's books that survive from this date! Obscure Scottish (?) costume plate book for children, engraved throughout. Whereas no publisher or place of imprint is given on the title-page, the fact that the FIRST plate in the suite is a SCOTS HIGHLANDER, and the binding was executed in EDINBURGH, leads us to believe that the book is Scottish; were it English it seems less likely to have evaporated from bibliographic record, as here. It is a remakable fact that no English (or Irish or Welsh) persons are depicted herein.

The plates illustrate peoples from many regions of the known world in their traditional dress, including: A Man of Otaheite in Mourning Dress; A Woman of Otaheite (after Webber); Esquimaux [sic] Indian; A Woman of the Interior of North America (i.e. Native American); Chinese Mandarin; Kamtchadal in full dress; A Lady of Peru; and numerous European, Eurasian, Arabian, Indian, Persian and Africans.

Campbell's address at 36 Leith Street, Edinburgh, appears on an 1824 binding in the British Library (Collins Collection 773). Ramsden, p. 191, lists only Campbell's 36 Leith Street address, and only in the 1829 Edinburgh Directory. However, we have located Campbell's 17 Leith Street (as a "Bible Depository") in Gray's 1837/1838 Annual Directory.

OCLC locates a single example, rebound and with 18 plates only (Princeton University Cotsen Collection, "England, ca. 1805"). No copy is listed in Rare Book Hub, which currently records more than 11 million transactions on the market. Not in COPAC.