[Rarebooks] FS - National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans, Vol I-IV, full leather

[Michael Watson]

FS - The National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans
Vol I-IV, : With Biographical Sketches

D. Rice and A. N. Hart, 1859, Hardcover, 4to  11" - 13" tall, 300 each
pp., VG/ NONE

Concise biographical essays of popular, influential, and famed,
politicians, businessfolk, clergy, inventors, explorers: collected from
the original serialized version of 1833. All the movers and shakers, men
and women, that were deemed important from the beginning of the
Republic. This edition 1859[1856].

Tissue-covered steel engraved portrait plates of all concerned. Each
engraving lists the painted portrait it replicates and the painter where
known. Raised bands, ornately embossed brown full-leather publisher's
binding over heavy beveled boards,  gilt all edges of block, marker
ribbons. Unpaginated, approximately 300pp per volume.

Slight offsetting of plates onto their tissue covers. Scattered, tiny
mineral specks in paper. Occasional, faint foxing at edges of leaves.
Raised bands, joints, edges, and corners rubbed. Marring and small
losses to gilt edges. Faint offsetting at edges of pastedowns and
endpapers. Vol I: Small ink and marker notation front endpaper.

All corners still sharp, joints and hinges sound. All engraved plates
present. Internally clean, still fairly tight. With the ownership blind
stamp of Jack McKim Vorhies, noted numismatic author on obsolete bank
notes. Each front pastedown with the (presumably) original bookseller's
label of James Rudd, Louisville KY.

A complete set that's attractive, a good representation of how the
Republic of 1833 saw its favorite sons and daughters, and superior to
the mass-market sets of the era. All volumes VG condition. $250.00 USD
for the set, postpaid in the USA via USPS Media Rate, others please inquire.

http://www.20ants.com/auc/portraits1.jpg

http://www.20ants.com/auc/portraits2.jpg

http://www.20ants.com/auc/portraits3.jpg

http://www.20ants.com/auc/portraits4.jpg

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[Books of great authors] are regarded as part of the necessary
furniture of the house -- not of the mind; and having been duly and
dutifully bought they are taught to know their place on the appointed
shelf. They are taken as read. There are few men now who, when a new
book is published, read an old one. - An anonymous 19th century cynic