ROBINSON, William Heath (author and illustrator). Motor Mania. London “The Motor Owner” printed by The Field Press Ltd. [1921]

Royal 8vo., 200 x 253mm; original buff pictorial wrappers printed in black, with pictorial advertisement to lower cover, stapled; pp. 60; with three pictorial sections including 19 full-page cartoons in black and white, 19 pages of drawings illustrating quotations, and 19 vignettes in line; an unusually attractive copy of a very scarce and vulnerable book; light overall dusting and rubbing with a closed 6mm tear to bottom edge of upper panel, small edge-nicking, and some wear to spine fold with staples rusted with some separation but holding well and minimal internal rust-bleed, a couple of small areas of paper splitting to spine, longest 13mm to tail, and another 5mm, internally clean without ownership marks or inscriptions, with the very mild and almost unnoticeable weak vertical fold throughout.

First edition. The freshness of motoring as a growing passion, for those who could afford it, became a source of much inspiration for Heath Robinson throughout the 1920s, “it recurs frequently in his early cartoons, with the three sets of motoring cartoons in Out and Away 1919-1920, The Home Made Car series which first appeared in The Strand Magazine in 1921 and Motor Mania, a book of cartoons which was published by The Motor Owner magazine the same year, being among the best of them.” cf. Beare (A8, pp. 99). No copies on the commercial market at the time of cataloguing.