ONE HUNDRED FABLES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED, [plus] SECOND SERIES. 2 VOL

1829. NORTHCOTE, James. NORTHCOTE, James, etc., etc. ONE HUNDRED FABLES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. Embellished with Two Hundred Eighty Engravings on Wood. Second Edition. London: Geo. Lawford, (printed by C. Whittingham, Chiswick), 1829. First series. Engraved frontisp. portrait of Northcote. The head-pieces are designed by Northcote, with ornamental letters and tail-pieces designed by William Harvey, one of Thomas Bewick's favorite pupils. All of them were drawn on wood and prepared for the engravers by Harvey. viii,272 pp. At the end of the volumes, the "index to the engravings" lists the engravers. Offered with: FABLES, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. By the late James Northcote, R.A. SECOND SERIES. Embellished with Two Hundred Eighty Engravings on Wood. [First Edition]. London: John Murray, (printed by C. Whittingham, Chiswick Press), 1833. Wood-engraved portrait of Northcote on t.p. As above, the head-pieces are by Northcote and the ornamental initials and tail-pieces are by Harvey, who drew them on wood and prepared them for the engravers. lx,248 pp. A life of Northcote by the editor, Edmund Southey Rogers, opens the volume; an index to the engravings that also lists the engravers closes the volume. Two 8vo. volumes, 19.5 x 12 cm, in publisher's bindings: red cloth, gilt-stamped title and decoration on spine, blocked in blind on sides, pale yellow endpapers. Booklabel of George Brinley in each volume. Shallow chipping at heads, with a bit of wear at heels and some edges, but quite clean within and without. A handsome set in very good condition. James Northcote (1746-1831), artist and writer, began his career as an assistant in Sir Joshua Reynolds' studio, eventually becoming a successful portrait painter and, at the end of his career, devoting himself to animal painting. Besides his FABLES, he wrote a biography of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1813) and his CONVERSATIONS (1830) were published by William Hazlitt. (Ray, G.N., Illustrator and the book in England, #56: the second Series; Houfe, Dictionary of British book illustrators, p.403).