Item #129274 The Demon McGuire! [cover title]. Francis H. GRUNDY.
The Demon McGuire! [cover title]
The Demon McGuire! [cover title]
The Demon McGuire! [cover title]
The Demon McGuire! [cover title]
The Demon McGuire! [cover title]
The Demon McGuire! [cover title]
The Demon McGuire! [cover title]
The Demon McGuire! [cover title]
The Demon McGuire! [cover title]
The Demon McGuire! [cover title]
The Demon McGuire! [cover title]
The Demon McGuire! [cover title]
The Demon McGuire! [cover title]

The Demon McGuire! [cover title]

Sydney, 'Lithographed by Gibbs, Shallard, & Co.', [1872].

Quarto (270 × 220 mm), [24] leaves printed one side only, comprising 12 pages of letterpress verse and 12 full-page lithographed plates after drawings by Charles Lascelles (as issued, without a title leaf).

Original flush-cut quarter maroon cloth and limp pictorial salmon-pink papered boards; cloth a little flecked and frayed; covers slightly worn, with minor surface loss to silverfish; paper a little toned; minimal further signs of use and age; withall, a very attractive item.

A very rare early illustrated Australian children's book, in which a monstrous demon rampages through the streets of Sydney. Identifiable landmarks in the illustrations include the Hyde Park Obelisk, Woolloomooloo, North and South Heads, and Government House. Many more are mentioned in the text, including private houses (Rockwell, Tusculum, Orwell, Kellett, and Lankelly Terrace), the Captain Cook monument (prior to the erection of the statue itself), the Domain, and the Museum. A number of individuals are similarly named, including Gerard Krefft (Curator of the Museum) and Charles Moore (Government Gardener). Father Time and Father Christmas eventually banish McGuire to the moon.

E. Morris Miller and Marcie Muir both give 1870 as the date of publication, with the poem written as an address for the Charles Lascelles Benefit at the Prince of Wales Theatre in 1870. The text may date from then, but contemporary newspaper accounts suggest that this illustrated version was in fact issued around the end of 1872. 'Mr. Punch has also much pleasure in announcing the advent of a Christmas Book for Children (and at Christmas we are all children), which promises to be a great credit to the colony; it is called the history of "Demon McGuire," whose proportions are truly stupendous, and whose feats of activity and diablerie tremendous. The book will consist of twelve pages of letter-press, written by an amateur contributor to Punch, who has often amused our readers, and twelve suitable sketches by our friend Charles Lascelles, whose genius is too well known to require praise from even Punch' ('Sydney Punch', 14 November 1872, New Books section). That it is a Christmas book is borne out by the final illustration, showing McGuire grinning down from the moon with pipe and mug of ale, with the text 'A Merry X-mas and a Happy New Year'. Advertisements for the book continued to appear in January and March 1873 (giving McGuire's name variously as M'Guire and Maguire). Grundy's authorship is confirmed by a monogram in the top corner of the front cover.

Trove records only three copies, one each in the National Library of Australia, the State Library of Victoria, and the State Library of NSW. The latter copy was presented to David Scott Mitchell by Grundy in June 1876 (perhaps is wasn't such a best-seller in 1872), and it is inscribed with thirteen lines of similar doggerel addressed to Mitchell.

Muir 3099 (miscounting the leaves, not identifying the artist); Miller, page 209.

Item #129274

Price (AUD): $8,000.00

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