THE AURORA BOREALIS, OR FLASHES OF WIT; CALCULATED TO DROWN DULL CARE AND ERADICATE THE BLUE DEVILS. WITH ORIGINAL ETCHINGS, DESIGNED AND EXECUTED BY D. C. JOHNSTON.
Boston: By the Editor of the Galaxy of Wit. Sold in Philadelphia by John Grigg, and Carey and Hart, and in New York by Elam Bliss, 1831. [4], 216 pp. With fourteen full-page original etchings by Johnston. including frontispiece and half title. Text with lightly scattered foxing, browned endpapers. Bound in original leather [rubbed], rebacked. Gilt-lettered red morocco spine label. Good plus.
Born in 1799, Johnston was an artist and a prominent early American lithographer. "He is best remembered for his contribution to the early years of lithography in America, and, of course, as a humorist" [AAS Online Exhibition, 3/20/2007, David Claypoole Johnston Collection]. Johnston was "known to his many admirers as the Cruikshank of the New World" [Greenhill, 'David Claypoole Johnston and the Menial Labor of Caricature', in 17 American Art, No. 3, pp 32-51 (2003)].
He was "the first American comic artist to have a sustained and popular career... From about 1825 to 1850, D.C. Johnston was the outstanding comic artist of New England in painting and in the graphic arts. He was the first natively trained American to master with distinction all the various graphic arts processes of lithography, etching, metal plate engraving, and wood engraving" [Tatham, 'A Note About David Claypoole Johnston,' in Syracuse Library Associates Courier, Spring 1970].
LCP Supp. 118. AI 5826. Item #41079
Price: $750.00