Seymour’s Sketches Illustrated in Prose & Verse by Alfred Crowquill. 

Size: 9 3/4 x 6 1/4 in. 

Robert Seymour (1798 - 1836) was a British illustrator and satirical cartoonist who specialized in sporting subjects, he was also known for his illustrations for The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens. He committed suicide after arguing with Dickens over illustrations for Pickwick - initially Seymour was given creative freedom on the book, but later clashed with Dickens over the direction of the illustrations - he felt he wasn’t receiving enough credit for his contributions to the book and he was being undermined by Dickens, so he took his own life for being undervalued and lack of recognition.  

The book here is titled Seymour’s Sketches Illustrated in Prose & Verse, it was written by Alfred Crowquill, a pen name for the Forrester Brothers - Charles and Alfred Henry Forrester both used the pen name Alfred Crowquill. (Charles, 1805 - 1850, was an English lawyer and writer who was on the staff of the New Monthly Magazine in the 1830’s, where he used the name pen name Crowquill. Alfred happened to be an etcher and draughtsman who collaborated with George Cruikshank too.) 

The book is a very attractive later edition in brown boards and a period calf binding, with five raised bands, horizontal gilt rules and a red label with gilt letters on the spine, gilt-ruled borders on the covers, blank endpapers, it was published in London by Henry Wallis at the Red Lion Square, printed by J and W Robins on Tooley Street, and the original gilt-decorated cover and gilt-decorated spine are laid in at the rear. The book has forty black-and-white illustrations, including the title page, tissue guards for all the illustrations, it is undated and unpaginated, but probably done in the 1860’s or 1870’s, and all the edges are gilt.  

The book measures 9 3/4 x 6 1/4 inches wide and is in great condition. The binding is tight and the pages and text are clean, with a lightly penciled note on the front paste-down, light offset from the illustrations, and faint brown spots here and there.  

#6166