"An Essay on the Genius of George Cruikshank by W.M. Thackeray; and additional memoirs by Hamilton, Stephens, Wilson, Bates and others" is in seven volumes dating from 1808 to 1877. The collection was purchased by William Andrews Clark from George M. Millard in 1917. The books are bound in green morocco by Rivière. The compiler is unidentified; John B. Gough (1817-1886), an eminent collector of Cruikshankiana, is possibly the compiler.

The artwork featured in this volume includes original pen and pencil sketches; woodcuts, wood engravings, steel engravings, etchings and lithographs by Cruikshank. A majority of these prints consist of title pages to various publications, in addition to illustrations created for chapbooks, original wrappers, magazines, pamphlets and books. Each volume includes a frontispiece portrait of Cruikshank, except the sixth volume with Cruikshank's original autograph on the frontispiece and his portrait following the volume's title page. A written memoir on George Cruikshank by Frederic G. Stephens (1828-1907) and William Bates (d. l884) immediately follows the title pages in Volumes III and IV.

Of particular note is a series of plates titled The Bottle (1848), The Drunkard's Children (1848), and The Drunkard's House (1860), which portray moralistic stories on the negative effects of alcoholism while demonstrating Cruikshank's allegiance to the Temperance movement. Numerous prints from other series, such as My Sketch Book (1833-1836), Bentley's Miscellany (1837-1843) and The Comic Almanack (1835-1853) are included. Additionally, illustrations to Oliver Twist (1838) and Sketches by Boz (1839) by Charles Dickens, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe, and fairy tales such as Jack and the Beanstalk (1854), are just several of the many published works featuring the artwork of George Cruikshank that were selected for inclusion in this collection.