This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/25/2023
POTTER, Professor. POTTER THE WONDERFUL! THE MARVELLOUS! THE GREAT ANTI-SPIRITUALIST AND WIZARD. West Hartlepool: J. Procter, 1872. Letterpress broadside proof of a bill bearing a central wood-engraved image of ghostly manifestations, trunk and barrel escapes, and describing the ancillary acts sharing the bill with Potter, including impersonators, a trapeze act, and singers. 30 x 10”. Ragged edges, old folds, tiny losses. Penciled marginalia, likely in the hand of the performer, indicates how the finished broadside should be printed. This bill is one of many recovered by Robert Wood from the archives of printer J. Procter of Hartlepool. The project of excavating Procter’s vast archives was chronicled in great and captivating detail in his book Victorian Delights (1967). Many of the objects Wood rescued were proofs or samples, as is the example offered here, which reveal various steps in the printing process as well as the client’s requested alterations to Procter’s work.