Songs and Their Singers, from Punch

ii, 15ff. Stiff red cloth-covered folder with gilt lettering (a little rubbed, a few minor marks on front). Decorated inner paper linings. Title page printed in red and black. Gift inscription on title page, dated 1899. Folio. Slight toning to title and contents pages, proofs are clean and bright. Lacks ribbon tie. A collection of 15 Japanese Proofs of Phil May’s caricature drawings for Punch Magazine in 1898, each depicting a singer of a popular song. Each proof, printed on Japanese Paper, is mounted on strong gilt-edged card. The songs covered are Beauty’s Eyes; We’ll All Go Hunting Today; I’d be a Butterfly; Drink to me Only With Thine Eyes; The Storm Friend; My Mother Bids Me Bind my Hair; The Warrior Bold; The Heart Bow’d Down; Only This”; Put Me In My Little Bed; The Gay Tom Tit; Tis Hard to Give the Hand; To Blossoms; The Devout Lover; and There’s Only One Girl in the World for Me”. May (d. 1903) was an English caricaturist who, with his vigorous economy of line, played an important role in moving away from Victorian styles of illustration towards the creation of the modern humorous cartoon.