The Recreation MDCCCXLI. A Gift-Book for Young Readers: embracing such subjects as are particularly fitted to interest and improve the youthful mind.

Engraved titlepage and frontispiece, and 5 steel engraved plates by J. Gellatly after R. Caunter Montague Stanley and J. Ferguson.

Contemporary full brown calf, gilt panelled spine with lettering-piece, gilt stamp on upper cover, marbled edges.

Published in 1840, late in the year, with the following year's date (1841), on the titlepage, this is the first of an annual series (to 1850). The texts are extracted from contemporary works, some anonymous but usually acknowledged, and divided into personal narratives and adventure, foreign travel, natural history and poetry. Included here are: Archer. Loss of the Phoenix in the West Indies, Riley. Sufferings in the Great Desert [Sahara], Wilde. Ascent to the Peak of Tenerife, Waterton. Capture of a cayman/Birds of South America, Cox. American wilderness, Ellis. Volcano in Hawaii, Audubon. Passenger pigeons of America, Beale. South-Sea whaling/Boat adventure near the Bonin Islands, Hoffman. Caverns of West Virginia. Although the engraved titlepage and the frontispiece are printed on the usual paper of the time for engravings, the five plates in the text are printed in Edinburgh on ART PAPER (coated on one side), and each has its original loose tissue guard; they have no plate mark. These are amongst the earliest examples of engraved plates printed on shiny surfaced kaolin-coated paper. One of these plates is badly darkened, but the others are still particularly fresh and white, with the image crisp, justifying the experiment. The Recreation series was a God-send for school Heads looking for awards for pupils; and this copy has a printed label pasted on the endpaper, '...for praiseworthy and zealous application...' dated 'Christmas 1840’ by hand, together with the recipient's name, Thomas Isaac Walton. It also bears the gilt stamp of the school on the front cover, 'Mr Walton's School, Albany House, Kent Road, Surrey'. This is one of the earliest school PRIZE BINDINGS that we have noticed. Spine rubbed with loss of gilding, old marble paper repair to one hinge, some foxing. Not in Osborne.