The first issue Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi by Charles Dickens is identifiable via the appearance of the plate at page 238 in volume two in its first state, without the grotesque border, which was added later.

Girmaldi was one of the most renowned English actors of the Regency period. In the early 1800s he greatly expanded the role of the Clown in the Harlequinade and made it his own, to such an extant that a clown became known as a 'Joey', and his white-face make-up became standard for all types of clown.

Eric Stanley Quayle (1921–2001) was a noted British bibliophile (with a collection of 16,000 volumes), collector, historian and author. His own work was mainly related to the themes of collecting books but he also produced a noted biography of R. M. Ballantyne (1967) and two books of folk tales: one of Cornish Tales (The Magic Ointment) and one of Japanese Tales (The Shining Princess).

First edition, first issue; 2 volumes, 8vo; 12 illustrations by George Cruikshank, occasional, light foxing, mostly to preliminary and terminal leaves; publisher's floral-patterned, embossed, pink cloth, spines gilt, a little rubbed and dust-soiled, spines faded, otherwise very good; xix, [3], 288; ix, [1], 263 [1], 36 (ads) pp.

Eckel p.141.