British scrapbook of the late Regency-early Victorian period

This early nineteenth-century British scrapbook features clippings, copied and original riddles and verse, all of which is intermixed with a wide range of images throughout the album. Representing diverse color printing, engraving, lithography, and other processes, the images depict late Regency and early Victorian political cartoons, royalty, all kinds of humorous caricatures, fashionable ladies and gentlemen, landmark architecture and scenery, animals, birds, flowers, and fruit. Full-page plates are tipped onto page guards in the album, which includes multi-colored papers throughout. This scrap book seems to have been created for entertainment and amusement, offering much to consider in terms of politics, style, and literature from the period.

The album includes images of King William IV (regent 1830-1837) and Queen Adelaide, an image of Queen Victoria upon the opening of her first parliament, and another of Victoria with Prince Albert inserted into a cutout representing a fruit called "the New Windsor Pair" (the two were wed in 1840). A striking chromolithograph depicts a white wigged, dour-faced woman holding an innocent white lamp by a blue ribbon; the lamb is labeled "Irish Coercion Bill," and there are other verses throughout related to Ireland or the Irish. Another striking political cartoon is a full-page color image of a hawk or eagle with the jowly, white-haired head of an unknown man on the bird's body, whose claws are prominent.

There is an image of the "new" London Bridge, 1831, and an image of a lady titled "evening dress 1831." Period fashions in this scrapbook depict the gigot or mutton sleeves typical of the 1830s. Verse from Wordsworth and Burns is found in the album and there are several samples of original artwork. There are a few samples of an early or pre-photographic process with lace bordering a printed image.

Several of the large images are printed by William Spooner in London, such as "The Cotter's Saturday Night" or "The Common Lot." An image of a young woman with a babe and toddler titled "Bachelor's Buttons" is published by O. Hodgson, 111 Fleet Street, London. Other full-page color prints are titled "Persuasion Better Than Force," "A Fair Friend," "There's Papa," "The Wife," "May I Trust Him," "First Love," "My Brother's Grave," and "The Prayer of the Fatherless."

The cover of this scrapbook is embossed brown cloth with half-leather spine titled "Scrap Book." The album pages are half full and there are a number of full-page images tipped onto page guards.