The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
GALLERY
OF
COMICALITIES;
EMBRACING HUMOROUS
SKETCHES
BY
THE BROTHERS
ROBERT and GEORGE CRUIKSHANK,
ROBERT SEYMOUR,
AND OTHERS.
London:
Charles Hindley,
41, Booksellers' Row, St. Clement Danes, Strand, w.c.
THE
GALLERY OF COMICALITIES.
Most of the "Comicalities" here re-produced in fac similefirst appeared in the columns of Bell's Life in London andSporting Chronicle during the years 1827-8 and 9, andcaused an unprecedented increase in the weekly sale of thatjournal.
As a painter of Life andNature, in all their truth andeccentricity, George Cruikshank may be truly said to standunrivalled, and to be only equalled, even in former times by theinimitable Hogarth. The present Series has been principallyselected from "Cruikshank's Illustrations ofTime andPhrenology," and his Illustrations to Mr. Wright's"Morningsat Bow Street" and the sequel entitled "MoreMornings at Bow Street"—works which are replete withwit and humour.
Robert Cruikshank, the elder brother of George Cruikshank,Illustrated many books, &c., including Pierce Egan's,"The Finish to the Adventures ofTom, Jerry, and Logic, intheir pursuits through Life in and out of London," 1827.Died March 13, 1856. Aged 65 years.
Robert Seymour, a graphic humourist was born in London,about the year 1800. He was apprenticed to Mr. ThomasVaughan, a pattern-drawer in Spitalfields, and his practice inthat department of art appears to have given him the facilityand accuracy of pencil for which he was afterwards so distinguished.Within a very short period of fulfilling his term ofapprenticeship, he commenced, on his own account, as a painterin oils, and must have been tolerably expert at that early age, asalready in the spring of 1822, we find him exhibiting a pictureof some pretensions at the Royal Academy.
He executed various other oil paintings about this period,but the more pressing demand on his talents was for drawingson wood, a mode of book illustration then in great vogue. Thevarious illustrated books and periodicals published for the nextten or twelve years bespeak his popularity and industry in thatdepartment.
Although Seymour's hands were full of commissions fordrawing