Dream of Eugene Aram, The Murderer, Thomas Hood 1831. This book is titled "The Dream Of Eugene Aram, The Murderer", by Thomas Hood, Esq., With Designs by W. Harvey Engraved on Wood By Branston and Wright, and published in London by Charles Tilt in 1831. The book is a first edition bound by Riviere and has the original wrappers bound in at the rear. The book has five raised bands, six gilt-ruled compartments with gilt lettering and gilt tooling on the spine, polished calf boards with triple gilt-fillets borders, slate blue endpapers with wide gilt dentelles and the bookplates of Pearl Chamberlain and the bookplate of Wynne Rice Hugh Jeudwine, a noted book collector (1920 - 1984) from England, Pearl inscribed her name on a blank endpaper in front, which also says "Jeudwine Book Label" and "first edition" in pencil on the same page, then the half title, a woodcut by Harvey on the frontispiece, a vignette title page, a dedication to J. H. Reynolds, a four-page Preface by the author, the book is 32 pages long, a two-page publisher's ad by Charles Tilt at the rear, the original wrappers, and the top edge is gilt. The poem was originally published in the Gem in 1829, and this is the first time the book has been published with separate illustrations. Eugene Aram was a real person who studied language and linguistics, and he was convicted at trial for the murder of Daniel Clark, a storeowner Aram owed money to. Aram was arrested and conducted his own defense, but someone saw him do it, and Aram's wife saw him burning his own clothes in the garden a day after Clark disappeared. Aram was found guilty and hung about a week after his conviction, and that is the plot of this true story that Hood put into ballad form. Thomas Hood (1799 - 1845) was an English poet, author and humorist who wrote regularly for The London Magazine, Athenaeum, and Punch, and Rossetti called him "the finest English poet" between the generations of Shelley and Tennyson. His health was not good, so he began to study engraving, which enabled him later to illustrate his various humors and fancies. But his health was so bad he became an invalid by the age of 41 and died four years later. William Harvey (1796 - 1866) was a British wood-engraver and illustrator. At the age of 14, he was apprenticed to Thomas Bewick and became one of his favorite pupils. Harvey engraved many woodblocks for Bewick's Aesop's Fables (1818), and his masterpieces are his illustrations to Northcote's Fables (1823 to 1833) and to E. W. Lane's The Arabian Nights' Entertainments (1838 to 1840). The book is 8vo. and measures 7 1/2 x 4 3/4 in. wide and in very good condition. The binding is tight and the pages are clean; there are some brown spots on the blank endpapers in front and on some of the blank endpapers at the rear, and darker spots on the original wrappers bound in at the rear, but we believe those spots were already there when the wrappers were bound in, and there is very light rubbing on the edges to the spine. Overall, a very attractive book with a great storyline - "Murder, She Wrote!" - and you're the reader enjoying how it plays out. #71 #1703