![[LAMB, Charles]. Beauty and the Beast. London: B. M'Millan for M.J. Godwin, [ca 1811, final plate watermarked 1809].](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2001/NYR/2001_NYR_09878_0263_000(033324).jpg?w=1)
Details
[LAMB, Charles]. Beauty and the Beast. London: B. M'Millan for M.J. Godwin, [ca 1811, final plate watermarked 1809].
16o (131 x 106 mm). Eight hand-colored plates. (Lacks title-page and engraved sheet of music as often, some light spotting and pale offsetting.) Original blue printed pictorial stiff wrappers, engraved vignette on front cover (spine lacking, spotted); morocco gilt pull-off case. Provenance: Frank Brewer Bemis (bookplate) -- Hannah D. Rabinowitz (morocco bookplate) -- purchased from Scribner Rare Books, New York, 10 April 1970.
FIRST EDITION, the "surprize" issue (page 7, line 11). These wrappers are apparently unrecorded, not coinciding with those listed by Roff, and are possibly an early state before letters (see pp.119ff). The variant here has the cut depicting a scene from Homer, but is without the printed quotation beneath it. "There seems to be no positive proof that Lamb was the author of this little book ... [but] as we know that Lamb was familiar with all the circumstances, and as he had written successful books for Godwin, and was not above such work, there seems ground for believing that Lamb was the actual author" (Roff). At least four copies of the "surprize" issue (including that in the British Museum) are known without the title and folding sheet of music, suggesting that some copies were so issued. "VERY RARE IN ANY CONDITION" (Roff/Livingston pp.113ff).
16o (131 x 106 mm). Eight hand-colored plates. (Lacks title-page and engraved sheet of music as often, some light spotting and pale offsetting.) Original blue printed pictorial stiff wrappers, engraved vignette on front cover (spine lacking, spotted); morocco gilt pull-off case. Provenance: Frank Brewer Bemis (bookplate) -- Hannah D. Rabinowitz (morocco bookplate) -- purchased from Scribner Rare Books, New York, 10 April 1970.
FIRST EDITION, the "surprize" issue (page 7, line 11). These wrappers are apparently unrecorded, not coinciding with those listed by Roff, and are possibly an early state before letters (see pp.119ff). The variant here has the cut depicting a scene from Homer, but is without the printed quotation beneath it. "There seems to be no positive proof that Lamb was the author of this little book ... [but] as we know that Lamb was familiar with all the circumstances, and as he had written successful books for Godwin, and was not above such work, there seems ground for believing that Lamb was the actual author" (Roff). At least four copies of the "surprize" issue (including that in the British Museum) are known without the title and folding sheet of music, suggesting that some copies were so issued. "VERY RARE IN ANY CONDITION" (Roff/Livingston pp.113ff).