DAVISON (William). New Specimen of Cast-Metal Ornaments and Wood Types, Sold by W. Davison, Alnwick.1837

[Alnwick: W. Davison, 4to (272 x 220 mm), 130ff. printed on wove paper on recto only, unpaginated and unsigned, title printed within a border made up of decorative units, contains 1082 impressions of Bewick wood-engravings, stock cuts, metal ornaments, wood letters, ornamental borders, etc., numbered and priced, specimens 1063-1079 are absent as in all copies, 400 of the cuts are marked with a manuscript 'B', indicating that these cuts are by Bewick or come from his workshop, endpapers and title a little soiled and spotted, nineteenth-century half calf, slightly rubbed. An exceedingly rare and attractive specimen book of "double interest as an unusual example of the enterprise of a provincial printer and because of its Bewick association…" (Isaac). The first 50 or so cuts illustrate the Burns, Beattie, Blair, and Fergusson poetical works and Percy's Hermit of Warworth; followed by many stock cuts for tea, tobacco, auctions, race cards, sailing ships, walking stallions, royal & Newcastle arms; then, as one would imagine, there is a long run of animal cuts for Buffon, natural histories and children's books, all priced and numbered. Hugo quotes a manuscript note on the fly-leaf of his copy of this book "W. Davison… stated to me that he had paid Thomas Bewick upwards of five hundred pounds for the various Woodcut Blocks, used in illustrating his publications. With a view to disposing of his Blocks, he struck off a very few copies of this Work, as specimens; but, changing his mind as to their disposal, he suppressed the Work, which is very scarce, in consequence of his using up the copies as waste". However, Hugo then goes on to give his own views "A more correct account, I believe, is that the volume was done as an Advertisement for the sale of his stereotypes, of which he had several taken from most of the blocks, and not of the blocks themselves. Since his death many of his best blocks, which he hardly ever permitted to be used, have come into my possession, and the stereotype copies are widely diffused among printers in the North of England." Hugo, 298; Peter Isaac, Printing Historical Society facsimile, 1990.