The Kafirs Illustrated

First edition 1849, published by J. Hogarth.

Half-bound in red leather over red marbled papers. The front cover bears two stains as evidenced in the accompanying photographs. The larger and more obvious of which (approximately 20 cm X 12 cm) has caused lifting of the marbled paper, the second merely staining the paper and caused minor ghosting to the leather adjoining the spine and the bottom fore-corner.

The spine is in very good condition, despite minor wear at the head and a small split alongside the front cover on the hinge, which begins approximately 12 cm from the bottom and is roughly 8 cm in length. 

Inside the front cover, a bookplate has been removed which has caused some scarification to the marbled end-paper, roughly 12 cm x 10 cm.

The first three front loose end-papers are in good condition. The obverse of the frontispiece is badly foxed/stained, as is the frontispiece itself. The foxing/staining doesn't visibly intrude into the illustration itself, but is confined to the margins. The title page is in very good condition, despite very mild foxing. Said foxing is present to a minor degree throughout, and would be correctly described as feint ghosting which is largely invisible.

The thick card illustrated pages are acid yellowed as is common with this and similar titles of the epoch, due both to the card or paper, and the inks then in common usage. On the obverse of some illustrations, acid ghosting of the image is present. This acid leeching is fortunately absent from adjoining pages. The title page for illustrations 1 and 2 has a small tear at the foot of the gutter, approximately 5 cm long, and intruding into the page by about 5 cm. Page ends are age-toned.

The rear end-papers are in very good condition as is the back cover, despite two small areas of paper loss.