MOORE, Thomas. Lalla Rookh, an Oriental Romance. WITH FORE-EDGE PAINTING OF MOORE AND AN ORIENTAL SCENE

London, Longman, 1824. Octavo. Twelfth edition. Attractively bound in dark blue calf. Covers decorated to a panel design framed by a single gilt fillet with an octagonal gilt palmette and floral roll, the corners with triangular compartments featuring fleur-de-lys tools, the whole enclosing a centre panel comprising a single gilt fillet flanking blind decorative floral and interlacing roll. Spine (neatly rebacked preserving
original backstrip) divided into five panels by four gilt double raised bands, title and place of publication in gilt on burgundy goatskin letterpieces in the second and fourth; the remainder tooled in gilt with fleur-de-lys and blind scrolling; corners of the boards hatched in gilt; turn-ins gilt; blue, red, and gold endbands; orange splash-marbled endpapers. Beautiful fore-edge painting. All edges gilt.

Adorned with an appealing split fore-edge painting, containing a portrait of a young Thomas Moore within a panel to the right, and an Oriental Landscape with figures on foot, on horse and on elephant in a common area before a palace and other buildings with ogival-domed roofs. Moore is depicted with black curls, blue eyes, red pouting lips and a flowing black scarf. A splendid binding example in the style of Mullen with an early fore-edge painting. This work was a bestseller in the early part of the nineteenth century. In six months it ran into six editions, and into as many European translations. A charming fore-edge of the ‘Bard of Ireland’.