Quarto, dimensions 210 x 290mm. 12 india paper proof impressions. With an additional coloured portrait by H. Brown, and an address front in Grimaldi's hand, with his initials, bound in at front. Leaves mounted on linen guards. Finely bound in Victorian ('super extra') gilt tooled straight-grain crushed red morocco, ('in the Roger payne style') by Francis Bedford. T.E.G. Slightest of shelf-wear to extremities, else fine.

A splendidly presented memorial to the illustrative work of George Cruikshank for the 1838-published memoirs of English clown and pantomime, Joseph Grimaldi (1779-1837), edited by Dickens and issued after his success with Oliver Twist but before his breakthrough with Nicholas Nickleby, and his move away from publishers Richard Bentley.

As the engraved portrait issued with the text was not engraved by Cruikshank, it has not been included here; instead a coloured lithographed portrait of Grimaldi, executed by H. Brown - a musician in the orchestra at Sadlers Wells, where Grimaldi frequently performed - adorns this copy.