![[(?) LAMB, Charles]. Beauty and the Beast: or, A rough outside with a gentle heart. A poetical version of an ancient tale, London: M. J. Godwin, ca. 1811.]](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/1998/CSK/1998_CSK_08111_0049_000(105911).jpg?w=1)
Details
[(?) LAMB, Charles]. Beauty and the Beast: or, A rough outside with a gentle heart. A poetical version of an ancient tale, London: M. J. Godwin, ca. 1811.]
16°, 8 engraved plates, one folding sheet of music engraved on both sides (without title page, front free endpaper torn at inner margin, the sheet of music rubbed and slightly split along folds, also spotted, and affected by an inch-long clean tear, light spotting and dust-soiling throughout, final 2 leaves torn at inner margin, final leaf also with small segment torn from outer margin), original grey-blue boards, front cover with printed title, wood-engraved illustration with caption '"Go, be a Beast!" Homer' on back cover (both covers soiled, purple stain to rear cover, spine lacking and front cover almost detached, cords tender). Provenance: "To take this Book to school", contemporary pencil inscription to front free endpaper; "Mary Anne James, July 7th 1812, Mrs J. Bodley -- by W. V.," inscription penned on verso of first plate. A pencil note beneath this inscription refers to what is presumably another, rebacked copy in original boards sold as lot 1505 in Sotheby's (Hodgson's Rooms) on October 21 1976, to Rota for £260. Partially erased contemporary ownership inscription in pencil at head of B1.
FIRST EDITION, "surprize" issue. According to Les Livres de l'Enfance the "surprize" issue was published without a title and without the folding sheet of "Beauty's Song". Our copy lacks the title, but the folding sheet is present. A note in James Tregaskis's catalogue of Some of the Rarer Works of Charles Lamb (1927) explains that the "surprize" edition should contain a title and a sheet of music, but as the three copies listed all lack the title and music, "it is highly probable that some copies were so issued. Andrew Lang states in the preface of the reprint (p. viii) that only one copy with the title-page has been found." The fact that, in this copy, the 1812 inscription of Mary Anne James is so unusually placed on the verso of the first plate also indicates that this issue had no title, other than that printed on the book's cover. By tradition, this metrical version of the fairy story is the work of Charles Lamb for William Godwin who had previously asked Wordsworth to versify the tale. Carpenter & Prichard in the Oxford Companion to Children's Literature question this attribution stating: "Certainly it was published by Godwin's wife -- complete with elegant engravings and a song, with piano accompaniment, sung by Beauty -- but it is doubful on internal evidence that it is Lamb's work". Livingstone also admits that "there seems to be no positive proof that Lamb was the author of this little book." Carpenter & Prichard p. 54; Gottlieb 109; Les Livres de l'Enfance 3589; Livingstone/Roff p. 113; Tregaskis 4.
16°, 8 engraved plates, one folding sheet of music engraved on both sides (without title page, front free endpaper torn at inner margin, the sheet of music rubbed and slightly split along folds, also spotted, and affected by an inch-long clean tear, light spotting and dust-soiling throughout, final 2 leaves torn at inner margin, final leaf also with small segment torn from outer margin), original grey-blue boards, front cover with printed title, wood-engraved illustration with caption '"Go, be a Beast!" Homer' on back cover (both covers soiled, purple stain to rear cover, spine lacking and front cover almost detached, cords tender). Provenance: "To take this Book to school", contemporary pencil inscription to front free endpaper; "Mary Anne James, July 7th 1812, Mrs J. Bodley -- by W. V.," inscription penned on verso of first plate. A pencil note beneath this inscription refers to what is presumably another, rebacked copy in original boards sold as lot 1505 in Sotheby's (Hodgson's Rooms) on October 21 1976, to Rota for £260. Partially erased contemporary ownership inscription in pencil at head of B1.
FIRST EDITION, "surprize" issue. According to Les Livres de l'Enfance the "surprize" issue was published without a title and without the folding sheet of "Beauty's Song". Our copy lacks the title, but the folding sheet is present. A note in James Tregaskis's catalogue of Some of the Rarer Works of Charles Lamb (1927) explains that the "surprize" edition should contain a title and a sheet of music, but as the three copies listed all lack the title and music, "it is highly probable that some copies were so issued. Andrew Lang states in the preface of the reprint (p. viii) that only one copy with the title-page has been found." The fact that, in this copy, the 1812 inscription of Mary Anne James is so unusually placed on the verso of the first plate also indicates that this issue had no title, other than that printed on the book's cover. By tradition, this metrical version of the fairy story is the work of Charles Lamb for William Godwin who had previously asked Wordsworth to versify the tale. Carpenter & Prichard in the Oxford Companion to Children's Literature question this attribution stating: "Certainly it was published by Godwin's wife -- complete with elegant engravings and a song, with piano accompaniment, sung by Beauty -- but it is doubful on internal evidence that it is Lamb's work". Livingstone also admits that "there seems to be no positive proof that Lamb was the author of this little book." Carpenter & Prichard p. 54; Gottlieb 109; Les Livres de l'Enfance 3589; Livingstone/Roff p. 113; Tregaskis 4.