Comic History of England, The [and] The Comic History of Rome

London: Bradbury, Agnew & Co., 1872. Leech at His Most Celebrated
The Comic History of England & Rome - The Great Victorian Satirical Chronicles

[LEECH, John, illustrator]. A'BECKETT, Gilbert Abbott. The Comic History of England. With Twenty Coloured Etchings, and Two Hundred Woodcuts. By John Leech. London: Bradbury, Agnew, & Co., 1855.
[Together with:] The Comic History of Rome. Illustrated by John Leech. [London]: Bradbury, Agnew, & Co., [n.d., ca. 1855].

Early editions. Three octavo volumes bound in two (8 1/2 x 5 1/4 inches; 217 x 132 mm.). xii, 320; xii, 304; xii, 308 pp. Title-pages printed in red and black.

The Comic History of England with twenty hand-colored steel-engraved plates (including frontispieces), 200 woodcuts, and wood-engraved title-page.
The Comic History of Rome with ten hand-colored steel-engraved plates (including frontispiece), 98 woodcuts, and wood-engraved title-page.

Handsomely bound ca. 1920 by Bayntun (stamp-signed on the verso of the front free endpaper) in full salmon scored calf. Covers double-ruled in gilt, spines with five shallow raised bands elaborately tooled and lettered in gilt in compartments, brown and green morocco labels, gilt board edges and turn-ins, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt.
Housed in the original fleece-lined red cloth slipcase. A fine and most attractive set.

A cornerstone of Victorian comic illustration, these two works represent the most celebrated collaboration between John Leech and Gilbert Abbott A'Beckett, and stand among the defining achievements of mid-nineteenth century English satire.

Originally issued in parts, The Comic History of England achieved immediate and enduring popularity, presenting a gleefully irreverent re-imagining of the national past - from the Romans to Queen Victoria - through a succession of vividly comic episodes. Its companion, The Comic History of Rome, extends the same treatment to the ancient world, blending classical subject matter with distinctly Victorian wit.

Leech's illustrations - both the finely hand-colored plates and the profusion of woodcuts - are central to the success of the enterprise. As a principal artist for Punch magazine and illustrator of A Christmas Carol, Leech helped define the visual language of Victorian humor. His style, at once spontaneous and observant, captures the manners, absurdities, and social nuances of the age with remarkable immediacy.

As Simon Houfe observes, Leech established "a convention of social humour that was to last until the 1920s," and his drawings - though often rapidly executed - retain a freshness and vitality that continue to resonate. In these volumes, his work ranges from broad caricature to subtle social observation, offering a richly textured and highly entertaining visual chronicle of both ancient and modern folly.

Well-bound sets such as the present example, combining the two Comic Histories in an elegant and cohesive format, are increasingly sought after, particularly when the plates retain strong contemporary coloring and the bindings are of this quality.

See: Abbey, Life, 434 and 435; Martin Hardie, pp. 210-211; Tooley 295 & 298.