ROLAND CASHEL

First edition, first printing. Two Volumes. Bound from the original serialised parts; the wrappers, advertisements, and tipped in flyers bound separately. With forty illustrated plates by "Phiz" (Hablot K. Browne), this copy with the addition of thirteen original drawings by the artist (one annotated in his hand), mounted and bound alongside the relevant printed plates within. 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, and elaborately decorated inner dentelles, also in gilt. Burgundy endpapers. The additional volume of wrappers and advertisements is bound in matching morocco but lacking the tooling to boards or spines. A couple of wrappers complete with the elegant label for 'E. Ponsonby, Bookseller & Stationer, 116 Grafton Street, Dublin'. All plates present and correct. A near fine example, the bindings square and firm, the contents clean throughout. Moderate spotting to the fore-edge of the page block and marginally to some of the pages and versos of plates. A handsome set, with the wonderful addition of thirteen original drawings and manuscript notes by the great "Phiz".

With thirteen original preliminary drawings by "Phiz" (Hablot K. Browne), mounted and bound next to the relevant printed engraving within. The drawings are as follows: Frontispiece: 'Maritana'; Title page vignette; Bravo Toro!, p. 76 (black pastel and white gouache on grey paper, signed); The Money-Lender (watercolour and pencil, with annotations), p. 152; A Meeting Under the Greenwood Tree, p. 168; How to Work a Patent Pump, p. 246; "No" is the Feminine of "Yes", p. 440; The Temptation, p. 475; Picturesque, but not Pleasant, p. 93; A Family Party, p. 502; The Suspicion, p. 526; La Ninetta, p. 590; The Arrest, p. 617. 'The Money-Lender' includes a pencilled note above the illustration, presumably to the engraver, from Browne: "Push on with these – there's a gd. fellow [–] so you will be in a snip – don't keep them the usual week – let [Chapman and Hall] have it on Tuesday – be a locomotive — without smoke [the more smoke the less efficiency] – [I?] H B"; and, beneath the title, "Forwarded – Saturday 12th August 11 a.m." There is also a faint pencilled note (previously folded) mounted to the recto of 'The Temptation': "My Dr [?], I enclose forgotten sketches – is it utterly impossible that you can form any conception of the [?] finish required except from the originals [?]". 'Roland Cashel' opens in the Republic of Colombia, where (following Stephen J. M. Browne's helpful précis) our hero, "a harum-scarum young Irish soldier of fortune almost promises marriage to the daughter of a Colombian adventurer, when he learns he is heir to a large property in Ireland, and immediately returns there. In Dublin, the daughters of his lawyer, Mr Kennyfick, and others try to capture the young heir, but instead he falls in love with a penniless girl. [...] The villain, Tom Linton, introduces Roland to fast society with the intention of ruining him, and nearly implicates him with the young wife of Lord Kilgoff. The Colombian adventurer turns up to claim him; he is charged with murder; but eventually all is well." 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 1417).