FAIRY LEGENDS AND TRADITIONS OF THE SOUTH OF IRELAND (THREE VOLUMES, COMPLETE)
London, England: John Murray, 1826 & 1828. W.H. Brooke. Hardcover. 12mo, 6.6 x 4 in. Each illustrated with six engravings and other woodcuts by W.H. Brooke. Matching set: Smooth, dark-brown half-calf over marbled board. Marbled edges. Rubbing to extremities; corners nudged. Marbled endpapers. Spines and hinges tight.
VOLUME I (1826). Second edition. Printed by C. Howorth, Bell-Yard, Temple Bar. pp. xiv, [2], 326. Previous owner's signature in ink to top of title page. Occasional light foxing to pages. Engravings are foxed. One inch closed tear to plate opposite p. 80. Paper tape repair to plate opposite page 168.
VOLUME II (1828). First edition. Printed by Thomas Davision, Whitefriars: pp. xii, 326, 2 (poem, errata). Occasional spotting to pages. Light foxing to engravings.
VOLUME III (1828). First edition. Printed by Thomas Davision, Whitefriars: pp. xxxii, 300. Handwritten "B." in ink under title on title page. Occasional spotting to pages. Light foxing to engravings. 1/2 x 1/2 inch triangular open cut to rear free endpaper. Very Good. Item #85852
"Thomas Crofton Croker, (born Jan. 15, 1798, Cork, Ireland.—died Aug. 8, 1854, London, Eng.), Irish antiquary whose collections of songs and legends formed a storehouse for writers of the Irish literary revival.
"The son of an army major, Croker had little school education but did read widely while working in merchant trade. During rambles in southern Ireland from 1812 to 1816, Croker collected legends, folk songs, and keens (dirges for the dead), some of which he sent to the poet Thomas Moore, who acknowledged a debt to him in his Irish Melodies. This collection formed the basis of Researches in the South of Ireland (1824), a pioneering work of vast ethnography, and of his major publication, Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland (1825–28), which was translated into German by the brothers Grimm and admired by Sir Walter Scott, who described Croker as “little as a dwarf, keen-eyed as a hawk, and of easy prepossessing manners.” After 1818 Croker lived in England, working as clerk in the Admiralty until 1850. His later works included Popular Songs of Ireland (1839)."
(from Brittanica).
Price: $575.00