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Offering two Frank E. Smedley novels in matching fine bindings by Baynton of Bath, written by English novelist, Frank E. Smedley. The first, Lewis Arundel, or the Railroad of Life, 390 pp., and the second, Harry Coverdale's Courtship and All That Came of It, 512pp. Published by Downey & Co., Limited, London, 1899. Contemporary binding by Bayntun of Bath: three-quarter red morocco on red buckram-covered boards with marbleized endpapers. Binder's stamp to upper left corner verso front free endpaper. Spine with 5 raised bands, gilt title to second compartment and a single gilt art nouveau-style flower to each compartment. Top edge gilt, others untrimmed. Both contain bookplate of Edward Strong Moseley. Engraved illustrations by Phiz. Condition: Very Good overall, with old scratches to leather on one front cover, one small worm hole near front hinge. There are small areas of abrasion at the head, foot and corners of the top board of the first volume, and a slight rubbing to the corners. Spines Spines are clean on both. There is an area of ghosting to the bottom rear corner of second book. Text blocks are tight, and mostly clean but for normal age-toning and a bit of foxing to title page and few other first and last pages. Tissue guards a bit browned.*** FRANK E. SMEDLEY, (born Francis Edward Smedley) (1792- 1867): Victorian English novelist, who's work has been compared to Trollope and Dickens, wrote novels of the boisterous exploits of well-to-do young gentlemen. A disability of the feet left Smedley unable to attend regular school, and he was tutored at home by a reverend uncle. It has been suggested that his necessarily sedentary lifestyle was the spur to his "boisterous tales of adventure." Lewis Arundel was his second novel, and first serialized in Sharpe's London Magazine in 1852, to which he was thereafter employed as editor. He became acquainted with George Cruikshank and Phiz., both of whom illustrated his novels, and in 1854 would edit the short-lived George Cruikshank's Magazine.***PHIZ. (aka HABLOT KNIGHT BROWN) was most famous for his steel plate engravings of ten works of Charles Dickens, although he also illustrated the work of Charles Lever, Harrison Ainsworth and Smedley.***EDWARD STRONG MOSELEY (1813-1900) Scion of a prominent Newburyport, Massachusetts family in the nineteenth century, known for a notable personal library. Moseley was one of the largest ship owners in The Clipper City, as well as having a financial share in ninety-nine wooden sailing vessels built at John Currier's shipyard on The Merrimack River. President of one bank and Director of another, Moseley also held a variety of other civic posts. He trained in finance in the counting house of Boston's East India merchant, Benjamin A. Gould, after education at Yale. He shipped out as at least sixteen times as a young man, including several voyages to India and China as super-cargo. (A good biographical sketch on Moseley is found in The Biographical History of Massachusetts, Samuel Atkins Eliot, editor, Boston 1913.) Provenance: from descendants of the Perley Poore Moseley family.
Ref: FICT19 7576
$200.00