Baxter’s father published ‘Baxter’s Stranger in Brighton’ a guide for the fashionable Georgian visitor to the town in 1822, 1824 and 1826.

Courtney Lewis in 1924 writes about an aquatint, ‘Brighton Chain Pier’ drawn by G Baxter as the frontispiece to the 1824 edition of this guide and illustrated at the back of his book, please see image 1) above. This must have been a highlight of the town as the bridge had only recently opened on 25th November 1823.

In the same year other prints ‘sketched by G Baxter’ and a couple of lithographs i.e. drawn onto stone, signed ‘G Baxter Lithog’ appeared in Rev Horsfield’s ‘History of Lewes’, but which was published first?

The very bottom of the last page of ‘History of Lewes’ gives us the answer. The last page is an advert for John Baxter, George’s father and publisher of both books, and the last few lines read “Recently published, the second edition of Baxter’s Stranger in Brighton”. So, the second edition of ‘Stranger in Brighton’ including George Baxter’s drawing was already published and hence Brighton Chain Pier must be the earliest work, that we know of at this stage, accredited to George Baxter.

All copies of the ‘Stranger in Brighton’ are scarce, I have seen or heard of examples of the 1822 and 1826 editions but I can’t remember ever seeing or even hearing about a complete copy of the 1824 edition including the Baxter drawn frontispiece. WorldCat.org, the global catalogue of library materials, lists only two copies, one in the USA and the other in Canada.

I have recently acquired a larger version of this print. I don’t know the exact size of the smaller version but assuming the 1824 edition of the book is the same size as my 1826 version the full page must be approximately 18 cm x 11.5 cm. This larger version is 23.2 cm x 15.8 cm to the outside of the actual design with text under the print that reads:

Drawn by G Baxter
View of the Brighton Chain Pier, & C
from the outer Platform, which is most respectfully dedicated to the Pier Company
by their obedient Servant John Baxter 1824
Publisher of the Stranger in Brighton & Directory

There is no reason to think this larger version wasn’t published at roughly the same time as the smaller version in the book as it is also dated 1824. In the following 1826 edition, not surprisingly, the Chain Pier is listed as a key feature of the town and given a detailed description. At the bottom of the page is noted “A view on a larger scale, is published by J Baxter, and may be had at any of the libraries”, so this must be an early form of tourist souvenir.

My copy of this larger version is not in great condition being quite heavily toned but I illustrate it here as an example of the first published work of George Baxter, a print taken from a drawing by him of Brighton Chain Pier.

UPDATE

On 11th October 2022, just 6 months after writing the article above, a copy of the very rare 1824 Edition of ‘Baxter’s Stranger in Brighton’ came up for auction at Gorringes in Lewes. This would be the first time I have had the opportunity to see or even hear about a copy of that actual book complete with frontispiece ‘Drawn by G Baxter’.

In the original article I had presumed that the engraving was issued in two sizes, one as a standard size frontispiece to the book and then, as per the wording in the 1826 edition, “a Larger version…” which was the copy I had, BUT this was not the case.

As the images 6 and 7 above show there was only one size of engraving and the ‘large’ version I had was also the frontispiece to the smaller book as it was a folding plate. The reference in the 1826 edition referring to “A view on a larger scale…” was, when you read it again in the context of this new information, in fact stating that it was larger than the other engravings in that 1826 edition which were all of a standard size that you would have expected to find in the book. So although it has taken circa 4 years to write this update we can now say that the mystery is solved.