Life in Paris; Comprising the Rambles, Sprees, and Amours of Dick Wildfire. 1822

Life in Paris; Comprising the Rambles, Sprees, and Amours of Dick Wildfire, of Corinthian Celebrity, and his Bang-up Companions, Squire Jenkins and Captain O'Shuffleton; with the Whimsical Adventures of the Halibut Family; Including Sketches of a Variety of Other Eccentric Characters in the French Metropolis. David Carey. First edition, early issue, bound without the half-title and the "To the Binder" leaf at rear. (8vo) 23x14.5 cm (9x5¾") (iii)-xxiv, 489 pp. Additional illustrated title page and 20 hand-colored aquatint plates by George Cruikshank; twenty-two black and white woodcut text illustrations. . Later full polished brown calf, spine gilt, all edges marbled. Among the best of the imitations of Pierce Egan's Life in London, which had plates by Robert and George Cruikshank, the plates in this work are by George only (Tooley 129).

About this book

In 1821, journalist Pierce Egan published Life in London or, the Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn, esq., and his elegant friend, Corinthian Tom, accompanied by Bob Logic, the Oxonian, in their rambles and Sprees through the Metropolis, illustrated by the Cruikshank brothers, George and Robert.

It was an immediate, wild success. It's characters, Tom and Jerry, entered British pop-culture, spawning a French translation, six plays, and then traveled to America to begin a Tom and Jerry craze in the U.S. (Hanna-Barbera's popular animated cartoon series Tom & Jerry, cat v. mouse, harkens back to the original characters but has nothing to do with them).

In 1822, to capitalize on the success of Life in London, journalist David Carey published Life in Paris. (Booktryst)

David Carey (1782 - 1824) was the son of a manufacturer in Arbroath, Scotland. He worked in his father's countinghouse and for the Edinburgh publisher Archibald Constable before moving south, where he had a successful career as a journalist and supporter of Whig ministries. Carey edited the Poetical Magazine (1809-11). In 1823 he returned to Scotland, where he died of consumption 4 October 1824.

George Cruikshank (27 September 1792 – 1 February 1878) was a British caricaturist and book illustrator, praised as the "modern Hogarth" during his life. His book illustrations for his friend Charles Dickens, and many other authors, reached an international audience. (Wikipedia)