“AN ARTIST OF RARE TALENTS, BOTH IN HUMOUR AND PATHOS”

(CRUIKSHANK, George) [HUGO, Victor]. Hans of Iceland. London: J. Robins, 1825. Octavo, contemporary three-quarter brown crushed morocco gilt, raised bands, patterned boards and endpapers, uncut. $650.

First edition, with four plates of illustrations by George Cruikshank, from the library of Cruikshank scholar Albert M. Cohn.

"Cruikshank attained great celebrity as an artist of rare talents, both in humour and pathos" (Allibone, 456). "As a caricaturist [Cruikshank] was the legitimate successor of Rowlandson and Gillray; but both the broad grin of the one and the satiric ferocity of the other were mitigated in their pupil by a more genial spirit of fun and an altered environment… the comic gallery of the first fifty years of the nineteenth century would be poorer for his absence" (DNB). Cohn 382. This volume, with four original plates, is from the library of Albert M. Cohn, the foremost Cruikshank scholar and bibliographer, and bears Cohn's bookplate and label identifying the book's entry in his catalogue raisonné as "Cat. Rais. 382" in his hand. Three owner bookplates other than Cohn's.

Plates very lightly foxed, with slight offsetting onto facing pages. Minor toning to spine. A fine association copy.