Jackanapes
London, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, [circa 1890s] ('One hundred and forty-fourth thousand')/ 1884.
Octavo, 48 pages (last one a publisher's advertisement) with numerous illustrations by Randolph Caldecott.
Quarter plain cloth and colour pictorial papered boards, the latter a little marked and bumped at the extremities, with minor wear to the corners; flyleaves and first and last pages offset; a very good copy (internally excellent).
The front flyleaf is inscribed 'This for Una in memory of the cold tongue & salad period from a sufferer. Y'clept [By the name of]. John. September 97'. Offered with a companion volume by Ewing, 'The Story of a Short Life' (pictorial papered boards a little marked and lightly worn; in very good condition). Its front flyleaf is inscribed somewhat more prosaically 'To Una from John W Downer. September 97'. Sir John William Downer (1843-1915), lawyer and politician, twice premier of South Australia, a member of the constitutional and drafting committee at the Australasian Federal Convention of 1897, and one of six South Australian senators in the first Federal Parliament. 'He was married twice; first to Elizabeth Henderson (d.1896); and second, on 29 November 1899, in Sydney, to Una Stella Haslingden Russell, artist [circa 1871-1955]. He was survived by a son from each marriage (Sir Alexander Downer being his son by the second marriage)' ('Australian Dictionary of Biography'). He gave these charming gifts to his young second wife two years before their marriage. [2 items].
Item #118425
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