Dublin: William Curry, Jun. and Company, 1839. First edition.
Octavo, contemporary half calf over marbled paper boards, calf corners; spine in six compartments with gilt-ruled bands and foliate tools, red morocco title label lettered in gilt HARRY LORREQUER; additional pictorial engraved title-page with vignette, letterpress title printed in black; pp. xv, 344; illustrated with engraved frontispiece ("Arrival of the Chargé d'Affaires") and numerous full-page plates by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne).
The first edition, in book form, of Charles Lever's first novel, his most celebrated work, and an early Curry Dublin printings to survive in a contemporary binding.
Lever's picaresque tale of a dashing young British Army officer first appeared serially in the Dublin University Magazine from 1837, and was gathered into book form by William Curry in 1839, illustrated throughout by "Phiz," who was concurrently at work illustrating Dickens (hence the similar plate styles). Lever and Dickens were mutual admirers, and Dickens kept several of Lever's works in his own library. Anthony Trollope famously remarked that Lever's novels read exactly like his conversation.
With the armorial bookplate of Charles Kent, Vicar of Ludford, to front pastedown.
Boards rubbed with wear to the corners and head/tail of spine, the marbled paper a little chipped at the extremities; spine gilt bright and label legible. Foxing and spotting concentrated at the frontispiece and title-leaf, as often found; the text block notably clean throughout with only light, scattered spotting to margins. Binding sound and firmly held; internally fresh. A very good, attractively bound copy with good provenance.
