Ten Pound Island Book Company

Old, Rare And Out of Print Books, Manuscripts And Charts Pertaining To The Sea

Photographic Pleasures Popularly Portrayed with Pen & Pencil.

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Item #50624
Photographic Pleasures Popularly Portrayed with Pen & Pencil.
Bede, Cuthbert. (Edward Bradley).
T. Mc'Lean, ( 1855), London
21 cm. xii-83 pp. b/w plates
Price: $350

First edition of an early parody of photographers and their subjects, authored by “Cuthbert Bede,” a pseudonym for novelist and artist Edward Bradley. The opening sentence of the introduction provides a sense of the sort of “humor” involved… “In the days when calotyping young ladies in civilized talk about their “blacks” – with all the unctuousness of a Mrs Steecher Bowe…” etc., etc. Reprints of this landmark book abound, but quite scarce in first edition. Bound in full calf with spine label and gold decorations on backstrip. All edges gilt. Front board stained and hanging by a thread. Original decorated cover bound in at back.