THACKERAY, William Makepeace. [GREGO, Joseph] Thackarayana. London: Chatto and Windus, 1875.

FIRST (SUPPRESSED) EDITION. (200 x 140 mm) pp. 492 + 24 p ads, dated Dec. 1874. Fore-edge foxed, but interior very clean. Embellished with many black and white illustrations throughout. Publisher’s cloth binding with black and gold vignettes and title. Minor bumping to end bands, previous bookseller’s notes on verso of front flyleaf , but overall in NEAR FINE condition.

Provenance : Bookplate of John Brown, Marquess of Sligo.

The invitation to view a private library collection is the invitation to view the inner working’s of the curator/collector.

Upon the death of William Thackeray, author of Vanity Fair and journalist for Punch and other Victorian social touchstones, his world goods were auctioned off. Joseph Grego, however, took the opportunity to extract from Thackeray’s personal library a “selection of literary curiosities” which he compiled & titled Thackerayana. This collection included Thackeray’s accompanying sketches & remarks.

It also included a few copyright infringements (for use of excerpts) which saw the first edition of the book suppressed and reissued in 1898 with changes to the text.

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