[8], 166 + [2] ad pp. Illustrated with 4 hand-colored steel etchings by John Leech, & 4 woodcuts after Leech engraved by W.J. Linton; title-page printed in red & blue, half-title printed in blue. 6½x4, original light reddish-brown cloth stamped in gilt & blind, green coated endpapers, all edges gilt. First Edition, First Issue.
First issue with "Stave I" on first page of text, the text uncorrected, and with the green coated endpapers. John Podeschi, in his catalogue of the Gimbel Collection at Yale, describes the trial issue dated 1844, with the half-title printed in green and the title in green and red, as the first state, and also alludes to a copy with the green ink changed to blue but the date remaining 1844. He calls copies such as the present one "probably...the third state of the first issue." However, the states dated 1844, being experimental in nature, are of extreme rarity, and copies such as this, with Stave I, half-title printed in blue, title in red and blue, and the green coated endpapers (which were later changed to yellow) are generally described as the first issue. (See Smith and others for a complete discussion of the bibliographic complexities of this book, and the varying perceptions of its editions, issues and states). Gimbel A79; Smith Vol. II, 4.
Condition:
Spine ends and corners a little crimped, leaning; front hinge cracking at endpapers, a touch of soiling within, bookplate on front pastedown with slight glue residue present, old bookseller's entry tipped to front free endpaper with further descriptions tipped to rear endpapers, else very good, nicer than generally seen, in rare state.