Angleterre

Two Volumes bound in one: pp. 323; 347. Engraved bookplate of Macaulay. 12mo. 185 mm. Later 19th century binding. Leather spine over marbled covered boards. Spine decorated and lettered in gold gilt, worn and repaired. Hardbound. Good. Hook was an English man of letters and composer, and briefly a civil servant in Mauritius. He is best known for his practical jokes, particularly the Berners Street hoax in 1810. The world's first postcard was received by Hook in 1840, which he probably posted to himself. While he was confined in a debtors sponging-house from (1823-1825), he wrote the nine volumes of stories afterwards collected under the title of Sayings and Doings. After various successes Hook returned to his old habits and a prolonged attempt to combine industry and dissipation resulted in the confession that he was done up in purse, in mind and in body. His estate was seized by the Treasury. He never married but lived with Mary Anne Doughty and they had six children. Hook was one of the most brilliant figures of Georgian times. He inspired the characters of Lucian Gay in Benjamin Disraeli's novel Coningsby and Mr Wagg in Thackeray's Vanity Fair. Coleridge praised him as being 'as true a genius as Dante'. First American edition. SCARCE. S&S/AI 16576. PAIMP 23