The Forgery or, Best Intentions. JAMES (G. P. R.)

First Edition. Three volumes. 8vo. [194 x 118 x 69 mm]. [1]f, 321pp; [1]f, 336pp; [1]f, 338pp. Bound in contemporary half maroon calf, marbled paper sides, the spines divided into six panels with raised bands flanked by thick and thin gilt fillets, lettered in the second and third, and with manuscript shelf-marks in the fifth, plain endleaves, red stained edges. (Spines slightly faded).
London: Thomas Cautley Newby, 1849

Bound without the advertisements. A fine copy, with the unusual addition of ink shelf-marks on the spine ("B 103/104/105"). With the ink signature on each title and bookplate inside the front covers of William Edward Powell (1788-1854) of Nanteos, near Aberystywyth. Powell served as High Sheriff of Cardiganshire in 1810-11, as MP for the county from 1816 until 1854 (sitting for 11 successive Parliaments without a single competitor, despite making not a single recorded speech in the Commons between 1820 and 1832) and he was appointed Lord Lieutenant in 1817. He tended to live beyond his means and embarked on a substantial renovation at Nanteos in the 1840s. The family remained in residence until 1951. With the bookplate of Robert J. Hayhurst (1929-2016).

George Payne Rainsford James's The Forgery was a complicated tale of a boy of mysterious parentage, gambling losses, forgery, escape abroad, faked death, exile, false names, trials and eventual establishment of innocence. "Throughout all his books, we find ourselves in the company of an intelligent, cultivated, good-natured, well-mannered gentleman. This, with his lively mode of putting together incidents so as to give the most commonplace a turn of novelty ... sufficiently account for the audience he has obtained" - The Examiner, 16th December 1848.

Stock no. ebc7717