EGAN, Pierce (1772-1849). Life in London, London, 1821, large 8vo, 36 hand-coloured aquatint plates, 3 folding leaves of music (some staining and spotting), FINELY BOUND in 20th-century scarlet crushed morocco gilt by Sangorski & Sutcliffe. FIRST EDITION.

EGAN, Pierce (1772-1849).  Life in London; or, the Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn, Esq. and his Elegant Friend Corinthian Tom, accompanied by Bob Logic, the Oxonian, in their Rambles and Sprees through the Metropolis. London: Printed for Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, 1821. Large 8vo (236 x 145mm). Hand-coloured aquatint frontispiece, wood-engraved vignette on title, and 35 plates by I. R. & G. Cruikshank, 3 folding leaves of music, the first leaf unnumbered, wood-engraved illustrations, 8-pages of publisher's advertisements at the end (some variable spotting, staining and offsetting of plates onto text, the leaves of music more heavily browned and spotted). FINELY BOUND in 20th-century scarlet crushed morocco gilt by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, the covers with double gilt fillet borders, spine gilt in 6 compartments, gilt edges, marbled endpapers (some very light fading to edge of upper cover and spine). Provenance: From the Collection of the late Seymour Stein (1942-2023). FIRST EDITION of this "description of the life of the 'man about town' of the day, interesting for the light it throws on the manners of the period and for the many slang phrases it introduces" (The Oxford Companion to English Literature, ed. M. Drabble, 1985). Abbey Life 281; Brunet II, 169; Cohn 262; Hardie English Coloured Books p.197: "Robert and George Cruikshank won a huge success by their illustrations to Pierce Egan's Life in London ... Containing thirty-six aquatint plates [i.e. including the frontispiece], coloured by hand, as well as numerous wood-engravings by the two brothers, it ... took town and country by storm"; Tooley 196.