8vo. [1], 239pp. With an engraved frontispiece and 21 further illustrated plates depicting scenes from 'Gotham'. Original publisher's blind-stamped brown cloth boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Rubbed and a trifle marked, top edge dusty. Title page browned, very occasional spotting throughout,

The first edition of a 'Comic History of Gotham' by an anonymous author, usually attributed to either literary critic Richard Grant White (1822-1885) or to John Smith (d. 1862), editor of the Glasgow Examiner. A social satire, the work humorously recounts the local affairs of the 'City of Gotham'- used as a stand-in for Glasgow - fashioning those involved as rulers, judges, and 'savans'. The appendix relates these ironic escapades to those actual events which inspired them - among them, the attempts to remove traders from Stockwell in 1853, the chemical testing of the waters of Loch Katerine, and even an assessor caught napping in the Dean of Guild court.