Beschreibung:

iv, 83, [5] pp. With 40 hand-colored aquatint plates. (4to) 26.5x20.3 cm (10½x8"), 20th century full red straight-grain morocco tooled in gilt & blind, spine lettered in gilt, raised bands, gilt inner dentelles, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt; bound by Bayntun-Riviere. First Edition. Rare and captivating color plate book on the consumption of alcoholic beverages in Britain - not, indeed, their creation, the growing of grapes and cultivation of hops, and means of fermentation - nor analysis of their science, such as was known - but a full-blown satirical exposé of those who drink, largely to excess, from the royal family and distinguished politicians and men of letters, to common laborers and women of easy virtue. As such it is unique, a clear-eyed and all-too-honest look at the dangerous pleasures of inebriation. Thirty-seven of the plates show the enthusiasts drinking wine with a glass; three depict drinking beer with a stein. In each case, there is occasional spillage. Each of the colored plates is followed by a leaf of text describing the subject in unvarnished, and often ribald, terms. Colored copies were special - at the foot of the title pages is printed "Price one guinea, in boards, or a guinea and a half, with the prints coloured." Only five copies are listed in OCLC: New York Public Library; Yale; and Harvard (these three noted as being colored); New York Public Library again (no mention of color); and the Huntington Library (this latter speculates, "The plates possibly engraved by Richard Newton" with no mention of color). View Video Preview