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Real Life in London; or The Rambles and Adventures of Bob Tallyho esq. and His Cousin the Hon. Tom. Dashall through the Metropolis; Exhibiting a Living Picture of Fashionable Characters Manners and Amusements in High and Low Life 2 VOLUMES

1821 · 54180 — London: Printed for Jones & Co. Oxford Arms Passage Paternoster-Row 1821. First. Hardcover. Very good. Two volumes octavo published in 1821 and 1822. 2: title verso blank iii-x 3-656; 2: title verso blank i-ix 1: blank 3-668 pp. Hand-colored engraved frontispiece and pictorial hand-colored title in each volume plus 30 hand-colored aquatint plates in the text. Later full crimson morocco triple-ruled in gilt; spine with raised bands lettered in gilt; gilt turn-ins; all edges gilt. Spine extremities and bands rubbed. Occasional mild toning and smudges. Complete with all 28 text plates called for in the Directions to the Binder along with an additional two plates "Tom and Bob Catching a Charley Napping" Abbey no. 34 and "St. George's Day Presentation at the Levee" Abbey no. 31. A very good or better set in a handsome signed binding by Riviere and Son.<br /> <br /> First edition later issue of this imitation of Pierce Egan's Life in London 1821. While sometimes attributed to Egan the work was possibly written by John Badcock. "Out of the sixty-five imitations of it which Egan stated that he had reckoned the most important was Real Life in London. which was published in sixpenny numbers in 1821 with excellent illustrations by Heath Alken Dighton Rowlandson and others. Real Life in London is a pleasanter book than its prototype. Some have held that Egan wrote it; but the author had a purer style a cleaner mind and a wider knowledge of London than Egan" The Cambridge History of English and American Literature. "From a bibliographical point of view one of the most complicated and bewildering books ever published rivaling Pickwick in the tangle of variant states that exist both in text and plates. The work had a tremendous success probably out-rivaling in popularity its prototype. A difficult feature of the book is that two printers. printed copies textually the same page by page with only minor variations in the settings and this coupled with the fact that during the eight or nine years it was being reprinted makes the whole vast output all 'first editions' but with innumerable states and variants that continually overlap one with the other" Abbey. "Originally published in 56 parts on completion the work was issued in boards. Later copies were bound in publisher's cloth. A book full of contrarities and difficulties for the bibliographer there being innumerable variations of the plates. The difficulties are further increased by many copies in modern bindings having been completed or made up of different issues giving combinations that are not true variations" Tooley. <br /> <br /> Printers: R. Bensley Bolt Court Fleet Street vol. 1; A. Applegath Stamford-street vol. 2. Second volume title and imprint: Real Life in London; or The Further Rambles and Adventures etc. - Printed for Jones & Co. 3 Warwick Square. 1822. References: Abbey Life 280 1821-22 first edition; J. H. Slater Illustrated Sporting Books 1899 p. 96; Tooley 198 1821-22 first edition. Printed for Jones & Co. Oxford Arms Passage, Paternoster-Row hardcover