[Rarebooks] fa: Pre-Waterloo LIFE OF WELLINGTON - 3vols. PLATES & MAPS - 1812-1814

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Ending Sunday, April 19, along with a number of other 18th-19th  
century British titles...

http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/arch_in_la

Cheers,
Ardwight Chamberlain

Francis L. Clarke:The Life of His Grace Arthur, Duke, Marquis, and  
Earl of Wellington, Viscount Wellington of Talavera... With Copious  
Details and Delineations Historical, Political, and Military, of the  
Various Important Services in which he has been Engaged ... in  
Flanders, India, Ireland, Denmark, Spain, and Portugal... Including  
numerous Interesting Professional Anecdotes... London: Printed by and  
for J. and J. Cundee [1812-1814]. Three volumes, 8vo, half calf and  
marbled boards, leather spine labels titled in gilt, top edges gilt;  
568 + vi, 567 + [7], 570 + [6] pp.; extra engraved title-pages,  
engraved plates and maps, woodcut vignettes.

With 30 plates and 3 maps (2 folding). Several of the plates are by  
ROBERT CRUIKSHANK, signed "Cruikshank" or "I.R. Cruikshank" (see image  
above and frontispiece below). Issued from 1812-1814 as the Napoleonic  
Wars were raging, the material pertaining to the Peninsular Campaign  
and later developments reads with the vividness (and lack of  
objectivity) of news bulletins from the front. With extensive notes,  
correspondence, dispatches, indices, etc. The passage of time and  
Wellington's rising fortunes can be read in the title-pages to the  
volumes: vol. I bears the statement "In Two Volumes", which is dropped  
from vol. II and returns in vol. III altered to "In Three Volumes";  
the title of duke, bestowed in May, 1814, doesn't appear until vol.  
III, and Wellington, shown as a dapper "Field Marshel" in the  
frontispiece of vol. I, has by vol. III been transmogrified into  
something like a demigod, crowned with laurels by trumpet-blowing  
angels. The work carries Wellington's life through his victory in  
Spain and the abdication of Napoleon in 1814. A 15-page "Appendix"  
dealing with the battle of Waterloo was issued separately in 1817 and  
is not included here...

A superior example of a rather uncommon title: a search of OCLC turns  
up only 6 complete sets in U.S. libraries and institutions.