THE WORLD'S SHOW 1851 OR THE ADVENTURES OF MR & MRS SANDBOYS AND FAMILY
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[MAYHEW, Henry & CRUIKSHANK, George]. The World's Show. 1851: or, The adventures of Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys and family : who came up to London to "enjoy themselves," and to see the Great Exhibition. London: Published by David Bogue, 1851.
First edition. Leather-bound. Hardcover. Octavo (220 x 140 x 30 mm). Pp. [4], 1-62, 65-242, [10 - leaves of plates] - with error in pagination. English text. Bound in near contemporary half leather by Shutes Binders, Leeds. Pictorial title-page and 10 engraved plates by Cruikshank, 9 of them folding - the illustration titles are: All the world going to see the Great Exhibition of 1851 -- Manchester in 1851 -- London in 1851 -- Looking for lodgings -- The opera boxes during the time of the Great Exhibition -- The opening of the great hive of the world May 1 1851 or the industrial exhibition of all nations -- The first shilling day going in, the first shilling day coming out -- Some of the drolleries of the Great Exhibition of 1851 -- Odds & ends, in, out & about the Great Exhibition of 1851 -- The dispersion of the works of all nations from the Great Exhibition of 1851. Printed by Savil & Edwards. Condition: GOOD to VERY GOOD. Collated complete. Binding tight and secure with the hinges intact, the covers with light rubbing to extremities. Interior showing some light toning and foxing. The illustrations have been neatly linen backed and remain well-preserved. Without previous ownership markings. A lovely copy.
Notes: First edition, first printing, of a comic novel by Henry Mayhew, author of London Labour and the London Poor, taking as its theme the succession of mishaps which overtook the Sandboys family on a visit to London to see the Great Exhibition of 1851. The central figure in Mayhew's narrative, Christopher Sandboys, a gentleman farmer from the Lake District, never gets to visit the exhibition at all, but Mayhew vividly conveys the excitement generated by the exhibition both among Londoners and visitors from elsewhere in England and from overseas, and his portrayal of day-to-day life in London in the summer of 1851 as it affected individuals in the Sandboys' family's social class, although milked for comic effect, remains well worth reading. Originally issued in parts from February to September/Oct 1851, and then in blue cloth, "in the early issues there is an error in the pagination at p.63, where in subsequent issues a leaf of advertisements is inserted to make good the omission on the numbering of the pages" (Cohn, page 161). Cohn 548; Wolff 4687a.