SCRIBBLEOMANIA; OR, THE PRINTER'S DEVIL'S POLOCHRONICON. A SUBLIME POEM

London: Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, 1815. First edition. Minor wear to edges and spine, but all quite clean and sound - a very nice copy of a scarce item.. First edition. Thick 8vo. viii, 341p (i, ads). Title page in red and black with a vignette of a swan wearing glasses and an inkwell hanging from it's neck, and a quote from Horace: "Amabilis insania et mentis gratissimus error.". Extra-illustrated with 109 engravings: 106 portraits, 3 scenes - 9 colored. Bound by Sandford (according to a penciled note on the flyleaf - perhaps William Sandford, the gilder & marbler of 40 Maiden Lane, London). Binding of full red straight-grained morocco with marbled endpapers, t.e.g., the spine with gilt titles and double rules around the bands, triple-ruled fillets on the covers, dentelles. A collection of satirical, even scurrilous, commentaries in verse on writers of the period: Coleridge, Byron, Southey, Burns, Scott &c., as well as sections on "Novelists, Dramatists, Topographers, Travelers and Tourists, Catalogue Makers, and commentators on ancient lore" and more. There are also critiques of women writers of the period: Ann Radcilffe, Lady Morgan, Jane Porter, Fanny Burney, Maria Esgeworth, Hannah Moore, Mary Montague, etc.
NCBEL III: 386.
William Henry Ireland, best known as a forger, also as a poet, author of gothic novels, &c., son of author and engraver Samuel Ireland.