THE WORLD TURNED UP-SIDE DOWN (upside); or the comical metamorphoses: a work entirely calculated to excite laughter in grown persons, and promote moralily (sic), in the young ones of both sexes:

London, printed for & sold by Edward Ryland, at No 67 in the Old Bailey, no date, (1790).. TITLE CONTINUED: decorated with 34 copper plates curiously drawn and elegantly engraved. Price 1s Plain, 2s Coloured. Edition not known, circa 1790, 16mo in eights, approximately 120 x 90 mm, 4¾ x 3¾ inches, LACKS 2 COLOUR PLATES, Nos 9 (School Boys correcting their Master) and 27 (Old Women ground Young, hand coloured facsmiles inserted (see images 9 & 10), ALSO LACKING LAST LEAF OF TEXT FOR PLATE 31 (D8, 63/64), facsimile inserted for page 63 but lacking final page 64. Hand coloured frontispiece, engraved title page with hand coloured vignette, unnumbered hand coloured plate facing Introduction, the rest numbered 1-31, pages: (2 - title page, verso blank), ii (2 page verse introduction), (3)-62 numbered on versos only, collation: pi1, A-D8 (-D8), verse text, quarter brown roan, marbled boards. Binding rubbed, endpapers inscribed by 2 early owners (1802) and 1 20th century, lacking rear endpaper, light creasing to frontispiece, old erased scribble on verso, outer margin of 2 plates trimmed, no loss to image, 1 plate and following page with tiny loss to top blank corner, D1 has crude repairs with slight loss of text, inked in on the repairs, a little soiling and spotting to some pages, small ink smudge to inner margin page 49, lower margins of some text pages slightly trimmed, no loss. A good copy (lacking 2 plates and 1 leaf of text as noted). Hand coloured copies are uncommon. The images: Horses riding men; Ox driving farmers at plough; Fish angling for a man; Ass driving miller to market, the mill turned topsy-turvy; Hare roasting cook on spit, Cock basting him; Deer shooting Game Keeper; Wife acting the Soldier, Husband nursing child; Ox butchering a human; Horses turned Farriers; Doll carrying child etc. ESTC T213665 (1790?) is very similar to ours but uncoloured with only 60 numbered text pages. Not in Osborne or Gumuchian but an uncoloured copy is in Sotheby's final catalogue to the Oppenheimer sale, No. 262 (c.1770) and another uncoloured in Christie's sale of Marjorie Moon's library, No.64 (c.1785). MORE IMAGES ATTACHED TO THIS LISTING, ALL ZOOMABLE, FURTHER IMAGES ON REQUEST. POSTAGE AT COST.