1812 Choice Emblems Natural, Historical, Fabulous, Moral and Divine, for the Improvement and Pastime of Youth

Description

Illustrated, Leather Binding

This work comprises the marvellous wood engraved vignette illustrations of the emblems, followed by descriptions in verse and prose. It was intended for school use, for the 'amusement of a young nobleman'.

John Huddlestone Wynne (1743-1788) was a writer, who first had an apprenticeship as a printer. His works included 'A General History of the British Empire in America', 'The Four Seasons: a Poem', 'Fables of FLowers for the Female Sex', and 'Tales for Youth in Thirty Poems'. 

From the Bewick Collection of the Reverend Thomas Hugo, a British collector and antiquary, who was a member of the Society of Antiquaries of London, the Linnean Society and the Royal Society of Literature. With his bookplate to the front pastedown.

With an inscription reading 'Compiled by J. Huddleston Wynne, a bookseller's hack who turned his hand to 'Histories', 'Fables' and the like from about the middle of the 18th century or later. This work is the same as 'Riley's Emblems', first printed by Francis Newbery 1772. The cuts are said to be by John Bewick, and the book is usually listed by dealers amongst their 'Bewickiana'. They are really by the same inferior hand that executed most of the cuts for Newbery's books from 1760. No one, possessing the least taste for art, could associate John Bewick's name with them.'

Illustrated with wood engraved vignettes throughout, also with an illustrated frontispiece.