This book is titled "Whims and Oddities, In Prose And Verse: With Eighty-Seven Original Designs, By Thomas Hood. It's a New Edition, published in London by Edward Moxon in 1864, it's in a fine binding by Hayday, and it has a beautiful fore-edge painting on the gilt. The book has five raised bands, six compartments with gilt lettering and gilt devices, a beautifully textured crimson cover with a gilt-fillet border, marbled endpapers with thin gilt dentelles, the name "Hayday" stamped at the bottom of the first blank endpaper, "Fore-edge"in pencil on the next blank endpaper, the half-title reads "Whims And Oddities First And Second Series", then the title page, the next page says it was printed in London by Bradbury and Evans at Whitefriars, a two-page Preface, four pages of Contents, a small vignette to introduce the First Series of poems, eighty seven engravings and 310 pages of text, including the Second Series of poems, all the edges are gilt, and the fore-edge painting is on the vertical edge and shows a cannon, a tree, and a figure on the left, possibly a young maiden. Whims and Oddities was first published in 1826 and doesn't have a lot of value, but the book is not as important as the fore-edge painting, and we've only found two books of poems by Thomas Hood with fore-edge paintings listed for sale online. One was published by Moxon in 1853 and was a sixth edition, and the other by Ward, Lock & Co. was a second edition published in 1876, so this book is a rarity by Hood. The book measures 6 3/4 x 4 3/8 in. wide, with a tight binding and clean pages and text. There's light rubbing along the edge of the spine and at the heel and crown and at the tips, a light rubbing across the surface of the rear cover, one tip is slightly turned in, and the fore-edge painting is bright with pretty clear images as well. #72 #1702