Joseph Cundall, a Victorian Publisher : Notes on His Life and a Check-List of His Books

Private Libraries Association, Pinner, first edition, 1976. Cloth, tall 8vo, 28 cm,. viii, 96 pp. From the blurb: "Joseph Cundall was notable as a publisher, editor, author, book-designer, and pioneer photographer. Born in 1818, he was trained as a printer but became a publisher in his early twenties and produced many of the most attractive popular illustrated books of the 1850s and 1860s. His career as a photographer was also important, culminating in 1871 when the British Government sent him to Bayeux to organize the first photographic record of the famous tapestry. In 1843, at the age of twenty-five, Cundall became publisher of the Home Treasury series of children's books, conceived and edited by Henry Cole (who a few years later was one of the creators of the 1851 Great Exhibition). In the opinion of Ruari McLean these are still the most beautifully designed children's books ever made. But Cundall became bankrupt around 1849 and thereafter worked for other publishers on a freelance basis, mostly anonymously. For this reason his achievement has never been adequately recognized. In this volume Ruari McLean provides, for the first time, a list of works published, edited, written or designed by Cundall, and prefaces it with an account of Cundall's life, as far as it has been possible to discover it from the very few available documents surviving in various branches of the Cundall family, and from the books themselves. In addition to four colour plates the text is illustrated with upwards of 50 black-and-white illustrations, many taken from extremely rare or unique originals, or from proofs, in Cundall family collections which have never before been published. Very Good in a price-clipped dustwrapper which is slightly creased and nicked at the top edge.