Album with original humorous and satirical drawings and sketches by members of a talented Scottish family, circa 1900.

Square octavo (180 x 145 mm), original grey cloth over boards (minor staining), the front board embroidered in blue thread ‘Album’; front pastedown with small ownership label of C. J. MacNaughton; containing approx. [30] pages with original drawings by three competent amateur artists, mainly in pen and ink but some in watercolour or pencil, which accompany numerous popular children’s verses and rhymes (all handwritten in ink), plus a number of original humorous illustrations with captions; all of the works are signed by the artists, most with the initials M. M. but some with A. M. or R. M.; the authors whose work is illustrated include Eugene Field (1850-1895), Jane Taylor (1783-1824) and Ann Taylor (1782-1866), Randolph Caldecott (1846-1886), Edward Lear (1812-1888), William Allingham (1824-1889), Charles Perrault (1628-1703), and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834); last [30] pp. blank; very clean throughout.

The subject matter of the satirical illustrations in this charming little album – and the use of the Scots vernacular in their captions – makes it fairly evident that the MacNaughtons were a Scottish family. As far as we can ascertain, all of the highly accomplished pen and ink sketches which illustrate the popular verse in the album are also entirely original, in the sense that they have not been merely copied from publications.