Album of Caricature and Satirical Drawings, most of which is entitled, "From Punch's Book of Ancient British Costumes"

England, 1860-1879. Hardcover. Very Good. Small folio, 31.5 by 26.5 cm. 55 pp. with content, including 106 original drawings, most of which are mounted, and a few are drawn directly into the album, and six additional printed cartoons by Lynn. Most content on rectos, with the occasional verso having content on part of its page. (Six blank leaves in back.) We have been unable to find out anything about the artist, other than his name. The bulk of what is here is indeed copied from "Punch's Book of Ancient British Costumes", which was a series illustrated by John Tenniel in 1860, and which ran in issues through most of that year. Here the text is abridged from the original, but is often verbatim from the original. Virtually all the illustrations are copied, but do not appear to have been traced, with small modifications discernible. Because the drawings here are done with pen and ink and are not printed, they come off as sharper and richer than their inspiration. To our knowledge, the Tenniel series was never assembled together to form a single book, and so there is satisfaction to be derived here from having the series brought together as such. Nine pages of the album are devoted to fourteen cartoon drawings. We have no way of knowing whether these are copies or totally original by Lynn, who initialed these as well, and wrote captions, often with dialogue, either on the mounted paper or on the album paper beneath the mount. One of the drawings was drawn not by Lynn but a schoolfellow. That tells us that most of the album was kept by a student.