Valpurgis; or, The Devil's Festival. In Two Cantos. The Ball and Drawing Room

London: William Kidd, 1831. First Edition. Slim 12mo (16.5cm.); late 19th-century maroon cloth, gilt-lettered spine, original pictorial wrappers laid in; 35pp.; frontispiece and one additional plate by Robert Seymour. A hint of wear to cloth extremities, late 19th-century engraved ex-libris of a Gulielmi Gemmell, illustration signed in plate "E.G.," to front pastedown; mid-20th century ex-libris of Nathan Comfort Starr to front free endpaper; old bookseller's description tipped to p. [36] (blank). Very Good or better overall. Satirical verses inspired by Germany's annual Valpurgis night, first published in the London paper "Intelligence," with illustrations by Robert Seymour, best known for his contributions to the works of Dickens. BIBLIOTHECA DIABOLICA 1831, catalogued under the pseudonym "Facetiae," noting an 1833 edition illustrated by Cruikshank. At least one scholar tenuously attributes the text to author of the "Ingoldsby Legends" Richard Harris Barham based on stylistic similarities (see Graham E. Veritt, "English Caricaturists and Graphic Humorists of the Nineteenth Century" (1893), p. 216n).