Georg Christoph Lichtenberg's ausführliche Erklärung der Hogarthischen Kupferstiche, mit verkleinerten aber vollständigen Copien derselben von E. Riepenhausen. - Neue verbesserte Ausgabe. - Erste und zweite Lieferung. (- Vierzehnte Lieferung.) -

Vol. I: [iii-]xviii, 228 p. - Vol. II: [iii-]viii, 267, [1] p. - Vol. III: [4], 290 p. - Vol. IV: [2], 244 p. - Vol. V: x, 73, [1] p. - Vol. VI: xii, 87, [1] p.

The publication-dates are given on the title-pages as 1850, 1851, 1852, 1853, 1854 and 1854. The volumes are curiously numbered, in that each title includes the numbering of the parts (Lieferungen) which the volume contains but there are gaps in these numberings but no corresponding gaps in the contents of each volume:

Vol. [1]: (1850) '... Erste und zweite Lieferung' (containing articles I-XII);

Vol. [2]: (1851) '... Dritte und vierte Lieferung' (containing articles XIII-XXVI);

Vol. [3]: (1852) '... Fünfte und Sechste Lieferung' (containing articles XXVII - L);

Vol. [4]: (1853) '... Neunte und zehnte Lieferung' (containing articles LI-LXXV);

Vol. [5]: (1854) '... Dreizehnten Lieferung' (containing six unnumbered articles, equal to nos. LXXVI-LXXXI?);

Vol. [6]; (1854) '... Vierzehnte Lieferung' (containing articles LXXXII - LXXXVI).

There are title variants in the fifth and sixth volumes. The title-page of the fifth volume reads, 'J. P. Lyser's ausführliche Erklärung der Hogarthischen Kupferstiche, mit verkleinerten aber vollständigen Copien derselben von E. Riepenhausen, Dreizehnte Lieferung. - Göttingen, Verlag der Dieterichschen Buchhandlung. 1854.' That of the sixth volume reads, 'Dr. le Petit's ausführliche Erklärung der Hogarthischen Kupferstiche, mit verkleinerten aber vollständigen Copien derselben von E. Riepenhausen, herausgegeben von Karl Gusskow. Vierzehnte Lieferung. - Göttingen, Verlag der Dieterichschen Buchhandlung. 1854.'

Now best remembered for his Aphorisms, Lichtenberg was in his lifetime most widely known for these commentaries on Hogarth's prints, which he first published in the periodical Göttingen Taschenkalender between 1784 and 1796. He interprets the prints in the light of the social customs of Britain, of which he had first-hand knowledge. He is also concerned to deny G.E. Lessing's distinction between the painter as the representer of objects and the poet as representer of actions: each of Hogarth's pictures must be interpreted as presenting one moment of a wider narrative.