Lot 220: Spectacular catalogue of American wood engravings used by a Boston publisher

[AMERICAN WOOD ENGRAVING]

Catalogue, possibly unique, of the woodcuts and engravings used by the Boston firm of Munroe & Francis [later operating as Joseph H. Francis of Boston and Charles S. Francis of New York]. Probably prepared Boston: circa 1840s. Old three-quarters brown calf, marbled sides. 13 3/4 x 8 1/2 inches (35.5 x 21.5 cm); 233 ff. (plus several blank leaves), with thousands of wood engravings for the publications of the firm, including illustrations, title-pages, headpieces, tailpieces, decorative alphabets etc. The binding lacking the spine, heavily worn and quite defective, the leaves generally clean, a few with tears, but in all a remarkable survival. According to an old ink note on the front paste-down, this was the copy of Charles Dibble Strong.

The list of books produced by the firm during the many years of its existence is extremely extensive. They were first active in Boston (as Munroe & Francis) from approximately 1805; later they opened a New York branch. They had a ready trade in children's picture books among other things, and their list included (for example) a Mother Goose. This specialization is clearly reflected in the present catalogue of their stock of illustrative cuts. The earliest readily datable wood engravings here are some title vignettes dated from 1835 on, and the last to which we feel we can assign a date is an edition of Thomas Moore's The Epicurean, first published by them in 1841 according to OCLC/WorldCat. Graphically, the range of cuts shown here is quite compelling.

According to an ink note on the front pastedown, this work was owned by the publisher Charles Dibble Strong, and the note further states "these illustrations were used in the books he published." The exact import of this is unclear; Strong served as a foreman in a Boston shop (see the American Antiquarian Society account of his career), then in 1830 he became a publisher and stationer in his own right, specializing in Methodist literature, though he also published such works as Peter Parley's A Pictorial Geography of the World. Possibly he purchased the cuts from the firm of Francis? All the cuts in the present work are numbered in pencil for identification, as if they were indexed for use, so this certainly seems to be a possibility.