Memoirs of the First Thirty-Two Years of the Life of James Hardy Vaux, a Swindler and Pickpocket; now Transported, for the Second Time, to New South Wales. London: John Murray, 1819.
2 volumes. 12mo (188 x 108 mm). xx, 247, [1]; vii, [1], 227, [1]. Half-titles. Untrimmed in original boards, paper spine labels. Vol 2 with corner dampstain, spine ends and joints chipped, f.f.e. of vol 1 crumpled.
Provenance: Charles Manigault (ownership signatures on each title dated 1820 from New South Wales); Sondley Reference Library (bookplates, one ink number in a lower margin, inconspicuous blindstamps to title).

FIRST EDITION, ASSOCIATION COPY. The final 70 pages of the second volume comprise "A New and Comprehensive Vocabulary of the Flash Language," with a sycophantic dedication to the author's jailer at Newcastle, New South Wales. Vaux compiled the present work "during his solitary hours of cessation from hard labour."
The first owner of the present copy identifies himself in a lengthy inscription on the back of the first half-title: "I knew this Gentleman in Sydney - He lives near me & I saw him frequently. / But notwithstanding his intentions of reform, he had been recently turned out the of Police Office, where he had an appoint^mt as Clerk. At this period he was gentleman at large. He dresses well, & looked genteelly - but nobody knowing how he lived, he was still regarded as a suspicious character." Ferguson 770.