Robert Cruikshank, Charles Malloy Westmacott

A finely bound first edition of The English Spy, illustrated by Robert Cruikshank.

• Sold as a set of 2 volumes.
• Charles Malloy Westmacott (English).
• Illustrated by Robert Cruikshank.
• The English Spy. An Original Work, Characteristic, Satirical, and Humorous. Comprising Scenes and Sketches in Every Rank of Society, Being Portraits of the Illustrious, Eminent, Eccentric, and Notorious. Drawn from the Life by Bernard Blackmantle.
• London: Sherwood, Jones, and Co, 1825, 1826.
• Octavo.
• With 71 hand-colored aquatint plates, one full page wood engraving, and 74 woodcuts in the text, after Robert Cruikshank.
• Bound in full crimson morocco, gilt spine, all edges gilt, by Riviere & Son.

A vast panorama of high and low life in Regency England, from aristocratic London and the fashionable spas to pubs and boxing rings and street markets and sailors' carousals and town-and-gown riots, all caught in Westmacott's text and Cruikshank's inimitable illustrations. Abbey notes that this book was once described as "perhaps the most daring book ever published", since many of the characters were drawn from life, "and were, at the time of publication, undoubtedly easy to recognize". Time has perhaps obscured some of the scandalous aspects, but the work remains a vivid chronicle of a regal and rambunctious age.