Alfred Crowquill [i.e. Alfred Henry Forrester], 5 titles/ill...

Hammer

£40

Alfred Crowquill [i.e. Alfred Henry Forrester], 5 titles/illustrated titles, comprising K.R.H. Mackenzie: 'The Marvellous Adventures and Rare Conceits of Master Tyll Owlglass', L, Trubner, 1860, black and white frontis plus 6 coloured plates by Alfred Crowquill as called for, original pictorial cloth gilt; Alfred Crowquill: 'The Tutor's Assistant, Or Comic Figures of Arithmetic; Slightly Altered and Elucidated from Walking-Game', L, Harwood, 1843, 1st edition, engraved frontis + b/w engraved ills. throughout, original cloth gilt; 'Alfred Crowquill's Tales for Children', L, Routledge, 1864, 3 works in 1, 41 hand coloured engraved illustrations as called for, original blind stamped decorative cloth gilt; 'Strange Surprising Adventures of The Venerable Gooroo Simple And His Five Disciples Noodle, Doodle, Wiseacre, Zany, And Foozle', L, Trubner, 1861, 1st edition, 50 wood engraved ills. including hand coloured frontis as called for, original cloth gilt; 'Seymour's Humorous Sketches, Comprising Eighty-Six Caricature Etchings. Illustrated in Prose and Verse.', L, Bohn, 1861, 1st Bohn edition, 86 etched plates as called for, old half calf gilt.

Alfred Henry Forrester (1804-1872) was an English author, illustrator, artist and book designer, who was known under the pseudonym of "Alfred Crowquill". Crowquill’s work on the inside of his books was matched by work on their exteriors. He designed numerous book covers in the 1850s and 60s and probably continued in this line until the end of his career. The Pierpont Morgan Library contains 72 of his original designs in watercolour and graphite for a series of Yellowbacks, part of the collection of the Victorianist Gordon N. Ray, as well as a portfolio of printed versions of the covers. Apart from a brief mention in Ray’s account of Victorian illustration (64–5), this aspect of Crowquill’s work has attracted negligible critical interest, a strange omission given that his productivity makes him one of the foremost designers in the field; he produced far more covers, for example, than John Sleigh or Robert Dudley, and is only second, at least in terms of numbers, to John Leighton. (5)