This two-volume set of books is titled "Real Life In London; Or, The Rambles And Adventures Of Bob Tallyho, Esq. And His Cousin, The Hon. Tom Dashall &c. Through The Metropolis; Exhibiting A Living Picture Of Fashionable Characters, Manners, And Amusements in High and Low Life." By An Amateur [Pierce Egan], Embellished And Illustrated With a Series of Coloured Prints, Designed And Engraved By Messrs. Heath, Alken, Dighton, Rowlandson &c." The books were published in London by Jones And Co., Volume I here was published in 1827 and Volume 2 in 1829, both volumes are in a fine binding by Bayntun of Bath, England, Brooke was added as a designer or engraver in the second volume, and they have the two extra plates that are often left out of the plates listed in the Directions to the Binder in each Volume. (The two extra plates are "St. George's Day" in Volume I and "Tom & Bob Catching a Charley Napping" in Volume II.) The books have five raised bands, six gilt-ruled compartments with gilt lettering, geometric designs in gilt, and the dates in gilt at the bottom of the spines, the covers are full morocco with a gilt-fillet border sporting interwoven gilt designs and fashionable society characters in the center of the front covers, gilt-fillet borders with gilt corner devices on the front paste-downs and beautiful swirled marbled endpapers, "Bayntun Binder, Bath, Eng" is stamped in gilt at the bottom of the front paste-down in Volume I and at the top of the back paste-down in Volume II (albeit the lettering is upside down on the back paste-down - we don't know why, but that's the way it is), there are colored frontispieces in both volumes followed by a tissue guard and an engraved colored plate, then the title page, and all the edges are gilt. Volume I has eight pages of Contents with "Directions to the Binder" on the last page of Contents, nineteen colored plates and the extra plate titled "St. George's Day" for a total of twenty colored plates in the first volume; Volume II has nine pages of Contents, thirteen colored plates and the extra plate titled "Tom & Bob Catching a Charley Napping" for a total of fourteen colored plates in the second volume, and a total of thirty-four colored plates altogether, so all the plates are present, as well as the two extra plates that some publishers leave out. (The Directions to the Binder only list thirty-two plates and the two extra plates make thirty-four.) The two volumes are complete without the two extra plates, but it's more desirable for the plates to be included. Volume I has 656 pages of text and the second volume has 668 pages of text, as well as a leaf after the last Contents page - the leaf is about books published by Jones & Co. in 1827 - and Volume I also has a penciled note on the first blank endpaper that reads "… 2 Vol … with the two Rare Extra Plates not in list of Plates". The books were first published in 1821 and 1822 and have a variety of formats for the plates that drive bibliographers crazy, much like the points of issue that drove people crazy with Dickens' Pickwick Papers. Pierce Egan (1772-1849) was the "amateur" who wrote these two books; he was a British journalist and writer about sports and popular culture. His book "Life in London", published in 1821, was adapted into the stage play "Tom and Jerry, or Life in London" later that year, which became the first play to have a continuous run of 100 performances at the Adelphi Theatre in London's West End. He coined the term "the Sweet Science" as an epithet for prizefighting - he dubbed it "the Sweet Science of Bruising" to describe England's bare-knuckles fight scene - see his first volume of prizefighting articles, Boxiana; or Sketches of Ancient and Modern Pugilism, which came out in 1813, and see the plates of pugilism here. The books are 8vo. and measure 8 5/8 x 5 3/4 in. wide and are in really good condition. The bindings are tight, the pages and text are clean, with light browning on some of the plates, tads of rubbing on the heel and crown and on some of the tips, the frontispiece titled "The Principal Characters" in Volume I and the frontispiece titled "Life in London" in Volume II are trimmed at the top and bottom, and overall a very attractive set and a great guide to the social and sporting history of the times, in beautiful bindings by Bayntun. #103 #1634