Charles O’Malley, the Irish dragoon

Dublin : William Curry, Jun. and Company, 1841. First Edition. Two volumes, octavo (220 x 140 mm), slightly later uniform binding of half calf over green moire silk (lightly rubbed), spines in compartments with gilt decoration and contrasting leather title-pieces lettered in gilt; both volumes with additional pictorial title-page; Vol. I. pp. xiv, [1]-348; Vol. II. pp. viii, [1]-336; each volume is illustrated with 21 plates (including a frontispiece); spotting to fore-edge of text blocks, occasional spotting or browning to the plates; a very good first edition set in a handsome nineteenth-century binding.

First edition of Charles Lever’s second novel – arguably his most enduringly popular work – illustrated by “Phiz” (Hablot Knight Browne).

Anthony Trollope once favourably remarked that the stories of Irish novelist and raconteur Charles Lever (1806-1872) sounded exactly like his conversation, although Lever had only turned to writing as an extra source of income while studying medicine. The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer was originally published in serial form in the Dublin University Magazine in 1837-8. After its publication as a book in 1839 was a popular success, Lever published a string of novels, starting with Charles O’Malley, the Irish dragoon (1841), and Jack Hinton, The Guardsman and Tom Burke of Ours (1843), both notable for their realistic descriptions of battle scenes.