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Grimaldi, Stacey; Grimaldi, William.
A Suit of Armour for Youth.
Publisher: Published by the Proprietor, London;
Date of Publication: 1823
Stock Code: 10548
FIRST EDITION. 12mo, pp. xii, 92. Engraved frontispiece by Cosmo Armstrong after William Grimaldi and 11 additional full-page engraved plates with further engraved overlayed flaps to each. Finely bound in full diced calf, with gilt foliate rolled borders; gilt rolls to board-edges and inner boards; gilt spine ornaments and gilt spine titles. Orange and blue marbled endpapers. Some light scattered foxing to prelims and some mild offsetting to leaves facing plates, with the plates themselves being generally very clean, bright, and free of foxing or tears. Blue morocco bookplate of Henry Watson decorated in gilt, to front paste-down else no former owner marks, inscriptions or annotations. A finely bound and unusual survival of this elegant and tactile educational aid created by the miniature painter William Grimaldi (1751-1830) and his son Stacey Grimaldi (1790-1863). The work teaches on eleven traditional virtues, strongly influenced by chivalric codes and looking forward to the tastes of Victorian Medievalism. Each plate has a tipped-in engraved flap depicting a symbolic piece of armour which when pulled up reveals a vignette illustrating the corresponding virtue. The Grimaldis were innovators of this type of “lift-the-flap” book, which became known as “toilet books” and inspired other publishers to create numerous imitations. Scarce. £650.00