THACKERAY, William M. Vanity Fair. [iii]-xvi, 624 pp. With engraved frontispiece, engraved title-page, 38 engraved plates, and numerous engravings on steel and wood illustrating the text, all executed by the author. 8vo., 210 x 133 mm, bound by Hatchards of London in early twentieth-century polished tan calf, triple gilt filets on covers, gilt roundels at the corners, brown title-labels on spine, a.e.g. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1848.

First Edition, mixed issue of Thackeray's classic Victorian tale describing the parallel careers of the saucy Becky Sharp and the gentle Amelia Sedley. Thackeray considered it to be "undoubtedly the best of my books."

This copy has features the following points: with the suppressed woodcut of the "Marquis of Steyne" on page 336; headline on page [1] in rustic type; and "Mr. Pitt" for "Sir Pitt" on page 453. Lacking advertisement leaf, but a brilliant copy in a fine binding.

Early ownership inscription on first blank "Oliver V[ernon] Watney, from his father, 1921." This was none other than wealthy brewer and antiquarian Vernon J. Watney [d. 1928], of Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire, who bequeathed to his son the Cornbury estate, and its choice collection of paintings, which included, i.a., Juan de Flandes's "Temptation of Christ" (now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington).

Van Duzer 231. Grolier, English One Hundred 87. Wolff 6699.