The Ingoldsby Legends or Mirth & Marvels

E-209. Very Good. Leather. Leather. 8vo. J. M. Dent & Co, London, UK. 1922. 638 pgs. Illustrated with with 12 color plates and 90 in-text figures. Bound in full Riviere & Sons brown leather with gilt rule with black spine label present. Boards are lightly rubbed and worn at the boards. No ownership marks present. Text is clean and free of marks. Binding tight and solid. The Ingoldsby Legends were first printed during 1837 as a regular series of Richard Bentley's magazine, Bentley's Miscellany, and later in New Monthly Magazine. The legends were illustrated by John Leech and George Cruikshank. They proved immensely popular and were compiled into books published during 1840, 1842 and 1847 by Richard Bentley. They remained popular during the 19th century. The illustrations for this volume proved a turning point in Rackham's life. "In 1898, which was to be a watershed year for Rackham, Dent invited him to produce one hundred black and white illustrations for R. H. Barham's quaintly medievalizing poems and stories The Ingoldsby Legends of Mirth and Marvels. The £150 fee for this important commission bought, in addition, ownership of the originals and copyright. [The] episodic nature and superficial, rollicking humour [of the tales] were well suited to Rackham's talents, presenting him with endless opportunities to exercise his talent for the macabre and the inventive, the fantastic and the knockabout comic" E-096; 8vo 8" - 9" tall .