Marrin's Bookshop

Synopsis

By g. a. henty. with eight full-page illustrations by w. h. overend, and two maps.

Item Description

8vo. 7.5 x 5.5 inches. 352 pp.+ 32 pp. publisher's advertisements catalogue. Bound in contemporary pictorial red cloth, gilt. All edges gilt. Extremities a little worn, including corners and head and tail of spine, which is sunned; otherwise a very clean bright copy. 1891 signature on third free endpaper. Illustrated by 8 black and white plates, including frontispiece, and by 2 maps. Decorated head and tailpiece vignette, by initials and by publisher's device on title page. The title by G. A. Henty (1832-1902), is partly nautical in its early setting before culminating in the Waterloo campaign. As the author remarks in his preface, it features a courageous heroine, unusual in his boys' stories, although he cannot help commenting on how women 'may be frightened at a mouse or at a spider,' in spite of being braver than men. The internal evidence from this printing shows that the publisher's catalogue dates from 1891, although the actual main text may be identical to the first edition of 1890. Illustrated by William Heysham Overend (1851-98), marine artist and prolific book illustrator of both juvenile and adult fiction.