CONFESSIONS OF CON GREGAN: The Irish Gil Blas.

First edition, first printing. Complete in two volumes. Bound from the original parts with a selection of wrappers and adverts bound to the rear of each volume, Title-page to each volume. With twenty-nine illustrated plates (including frontispieces) and additional on-page illustrations by Hablot K. Browne ('Phiz'), this copy with sixteen original preliminary pencil drawings by the artist, each mounted and bound alongside the relevant printed plates. Half title to Vol. II alone as per Sadleir. Both are volumes finely bound in nineteenth century full dark green morocco (the spines uniformly faded to brown) with five raised bands, gilt decorated compartments (two with titles in gilt), front and rear boards triple-ruled, upper and lower edges double-ruled in gilt, with elaborately decorated inner dentelles, also in gilt. Burgundy endpapers. All plates present and correct. In near fine condition, the bindings square and firm, the contents clean throughout. Very lightly spotted to the fore-edge of the page block and the outer margins of a handful pages within. A handsome set, with the wonderful addition of sixteen original drawings by the great "Phiz".

With sixteen original preliminary pencil drawings by Hablot K. Browne ["Phiz"], seven in Vol. I, nine in Vol. II, each mounted and bound next to the relevant printed engraving. The original drawings are as follows: In Vol. I: title page vignette; headpiece vignette to Chapter VI (p. 53); 'The Introduction', p. 105; 'Con's Visitor at the Hut', p. 160; 'Con's Modest Soliloquy', p. 188; 'How Con. Fell in "With" the Widow Davies', p. 201; 'Pizzichetoni's Wonderful Fiddle', p. 272. In Vol. II: title page vignette; 'The Rapids', p. 6; 'Entering Bexar', p. 20; 'The "Camanche Village"', p. 69; 'Interview with the Governor', p. 77; 'The Duel', p. 114; 'My First Attempt at Fortune Telling', p. 176. There are also two rougher pencil sketches mounted to the verso of those on pp. 69 and 77, the latter a lightly rendered triplicate study of a mother with child. Subtitled by Lever as the "Irish Gil Blas" (after Alain-René Lesage's popular picaresque novel and its eponymous hero [1715–1735] notably translated by Tobias Smollett in 1748), 'The Confessions of Con Cregan' relates the story of its own titular character. "Born on the borders of Meath", Stephen J. M. Browne writes in his useful précis of the work, "Cregan goes to Dublin, where he has some exciting experiences, ending in his being carried off in the yacht of an eccentric baronet. He is wrecked on an island off the coast of North America. Here he meets a runaway slave, Menelaus Crick, one of the most striking characters in the book. There follow experiences (tragic and comic) in Quebec, and afterwards in Texas and Mexico, all described with remarkable vividness and wealth of colour. At last Cregan returns to Ireland, and marries a Spanish lady whom he had met in Mexico." 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, describes the 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. (Stephen J. M. Brown, 'Ireland in Fiction: A Guide to Irish Novels, Tales, Romances, and Folk-lore', Dublin: 1916; Sadleir 1397).