OUR MESS: JACK HINTON, THE GUARDSMAN; TOM BURKE OF "OURS": Complete in Three Volumes; Bound from the original parts as printed in the Dublin University Magazine.

First edition, first printing. Three volumes. Finely bound in full dark green morocco, the spines, uniformly faded to lighter brown, with five raised bands, gilt decorated compartments (two with titles in gilt), front and rear boards triple-ruled in gilt, elaborately decorated inner dentelles in gilt. Burgundy endpapers. Bound from the original parts published serially in the Dublin University Magazine 1843-4, the individual wrappers and advertisements bound to the rear of each volume; separate title pages to each volume. All plates, with illustrations by "Phiz", are present (27 in Vol. I, 24 in Vol. II, 20 in Vol. III; with 9 wood engravings in Vol. I). A near fine set, the bindings square and firm, the contents clean throughout. Very lightly spotted to fore- and lower page block edges, to the margins of a few pages, and to the binder's blanks at front and rear. A handsome set.

'Our Mess' was the overarching title for a projected series of military tales which Lever planned during the early 1840s but, except for 'Jack Hinton, the Guardsman' and 'Tom Burker of "Ours"' (here correctly bound in three volumes) it never materialised. Of Tom Burke, the second novel's protagonist, Tony Bareham notes that he is the "first young man in Lever to be serious […], a dispossessed orphan, hunted from Ireland by the yeoman cavalry, and compelled to exile in France, where he joins Napoleon's army" and the novel as "a moving study of delusion, monomania and loneliness. For all that its settings are still mainly military there is an intelligence at work in this book which is anything but repetitive genre work." Each of the illustrated pink wrappers to the original parts (bound together at the rear of each volume) is headed by the title, 'Our Mess', with Harry Lorrequer named as 'editor' (the name is borrowed from the title character of Lever's popular first novel). Charles James Lever was born in Dublin, and like Wilde and Beckett after him, attended Trinity College (1823–1828), taking his degree in medicine in 1831. He practised as a physician in Brussels before returning to Dublin to edit the Dublin University Magazine (1842-5). Acquainted with and respected by Dickens, Trollope and Thackeray. The latter, while noting the energy of Lever's humour, described his salient tone as "not humour but sentiment. The spirits are mostly artificial, the fond is sadness, as appears to me to be that of most Irish writing and people." Lever died in Trieste (Joyce's home for fifteen years) in 1872, aged 65. ('Charles Lever: New Evaluations', edited by Tony Barham, New York, 1991).