COPE'S SMOKE-ROOM BOOKLETS

First edition. Scarce.

An idiosyncratic series of pocket volumes appealing to the Victorian gentleman's pastime of smoking, reading and telling tales. Sophisticated, tongue-in-cheek and beautifully illustrated, the booklets championed classical literature and thinkers of its time, promoted the enjoyment of smoking while mocking the era's anti-tobacco and temperance movements.

Each booklet between 32 to 64 pages and focused on a specific author, topic or literary icon including Thomas Carlyle, Charles Lamb, Sir Walter Raleigh and others.

Publishing details: Published and produced 1889-1894 by Cope Bros. and Co. Liverpool. 

Vol no 13: "John Ruskin on Himself and Things in General" is notable because of the famous Cope vs Ruskin case- an 1893 legal battle where Victorian art critic John Ruskin sued Cope Brothers & Co. over the tobacco company's unauthorised use of his writings to advertise their products. Includes various extracts from Ruskin's works regarding politics, economics, and society. Ruskin, who was notoriously private and actively disliked commercial advertising, was outraged that his philosophical writings were being distributed by a tobacco firm. In November 1893, he took out an injunction against Cope Brothers. As a result, the company was legally barred from publishing or circulating Smoke-Room Booklet No. 13 as an advertising medium. They were forced to recall and destroy the first issue. Cope complied but saved the illustrated covers and replace the infringing text with an entirely different essay by Walter Lewin. This makes Vol 13, the unsuppressed edition thus, a treasure for collectors and a rarity in Victorian ephemera. 

Includes original letters written to the Cope brothers by the previous owner Maurice Buxton-Foreman, the son of the Victorian era Keats and Shelley scholar Harry Buxton-Foreman who was posthumously revealed to be a forger of rare documents. Maurice continued his father's quest to obtain the last volumes in the series, adding nos. 11, 12 and 14. Maurice also wrote to the rare book dealers Henry Younge and Sons Ltd Liverpool to obtain no 15 ("The Universal Soother") and WM Abington Rare Books for nos. 9, 11, 12 and 14. The original office copy of the letter outlining the Ruskin dispute (as outlined above) from Ruskin's solicitor Walter Cod has a Northern Star & Britannia watermark. 

Binding: Green cloth clamshell case with leather spine and gliding. Original soft grey or brown paper covers with titles and decoration stamped in gilt to front cover and spine, and with decorative border blind-stamped to back cover. Whimsical woodcut engravings. 

Condition: Very good. No 11 has some spotting and tanning. Some tanning where newspaper cuttings and cigarette cards were inserted. Edgewear. Vol 13 (Ruskin) has a glue mark on the frontispiece illustration. Binding loose vols. 10 and 13. Green silk ribbon has a tear.