Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, Edited by “Boz.” With Illustrations by George Cruikshank. In Two Volumes, London, Richard Bentley, New Burlington Street. 1838, in fine bindings by Morrell of London, 8 Vo, 3/4 bound, with five raised bands, red labels and gilt titles, six gilt-ruled compartments with elaborate gilt tooling on the spines, marbled endpapers, a frontis portrait of Joseph Grimaldi in Volume I and a frontis illustration of “Grimaldi’s kindness to the Giants” in Volume II, and the top edges are gilt. Boz was an early pen name of Charles Dickens.
Volume I is 288 pages long and Volume II is 263 pages long. Both volumes have the imprint of Samuel Bentley at the end (“London: Printed By Samuel Bentley, Dorset Street, Fleet Street.”) as called for, and there is a list of embellishments (drawings) on the last page of Volume II, as called for; the list includes seven plates in Volume I, including the frontispiece, and six plates in Volume II, including the frontispiece, all by George Cruikshank.
To tell if this is a first edition, first issue, you have to look at the plate on page 238 in the second volume. Eckel says that one distinguishing mark relates to the last plate in the book, known as The Last Song. In order for this to be a first issue, this should have no border, and it doesn’t. In the second issue a very crude attempt was made to “improve” Cruikshank’s drawing by surrounding it with a grotesque border, and there is no border around this plate (Eckel 141).
It should also have 36 pages of advertisements for Mr. Bentley’s List of New Works at the end of Volume II, according to Eckel, and these pages are lacking, so it seems like this set is a first edition, mixed issue, rather than a first edition, first issue.
Samuel and Richard Bentley were brothers - Richard published and Samuel did the printing at Samuel’s print shop, and George Cruikshank (1792 - 1878) was a British caricaturist and book illustrator praised as the "modern Hogarth" during his lifetime - high praise indeed - and his book illustrations for his friend Dickens reached an international audience, and collections of his works are in the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Joseph Grimaldi (1778 - 1837) was a real English actor, comedian, and dancer who easily became the most popular entertainer of the Regency era; he created the stereotype of the sad clown and was so dominant on the London stage that the pantomime role of the Clown became known as "Joey", and both the nickname and Grimaldi's whiteface make-up design were used by other types of clowns, and still are; Dickens also edited the book under his nom de plume “Boz”, possibly because he didn’t know if the book would sell, but actually it was a huge success.
The two volumes measure 7 1/2 x 5 in. wide, with light rubbing at the tips, and this is an attractive set in a fine binding written by a premier author and illustrated by one of the top artists of the nineteenth century.
See The First Editions Of Charles Dickens, Their Points and Values, John C. Eckel 1932.