4. British Champion (The), or Virtue Rewarded, containing I. The History of St. George and the Dragon, II. The Story of Miss Friendly and the Merchant, III. Rural Happiness, IV.The Fairy's Present, or the History of Miss K. Grateful, V. The leasing Story of Master Want-thought, 43 wood-engraved or woodcut illustrations, one forming frontispiece, flaw in one leaf affecting headline, original Dutch floral boards, 32mo., York, Wilson, Spence and Mawman , [c.1790].
est. £750 – £1000
This is possibly the Oppenheimer copy, apparently the only one to be sold at auction. The illustrations, some of which could be the work of John Bewick, are printed from blocks cut for earlier titles, and are not always appropriate. For example, an illustration of a young gentleman in late eighteenth-century dress passing two yokels in English woodland has been used to depict St. George talking to a hermit on the borders of Egypt. Sometimes the story appears to have been written around the available illustrations, as in "The Fairy's Present", where a scene on board a ship is introduced to illustrate a threat made by a beautiful temptress to Prince Frederick.
Unsold