[Rarebooks] fa: DAVID ROBERTS - THE HOLY LAND 1855 - JERUSALEM & GALILEE - 44 PLATES

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, March 17. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/mnokg2h

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

David Roberts: The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, & Nubia. …With Historical Descriptions by the Rev. George Croly. London: Day & Son, April 13th 1855. Vol. I only. First edition thus. Tall 4to (30 cm) in original publisher's blue cloth binding, titled and decorated in gilt, gilt page-edges; 44 tinted lithographic plates (complete) with accompanying descriptive text, tissue-guards.

First 4to edition of Roberts' monumental collection of images of the Near East, one of the great illustrated travel works of the nineteenth century, first published in folio from 1842-1849. This is the first volume only, but complete in itself, comprising Jerusalem and Galilee. With forty-four exquisitely lithographed plates, sepia and tinted, of such sites as the Damascus Gate, Mosque of Omar, Entrance to the Tomb of the Kings, Tower of David, Fountain of Job, Calvary, Mount Tabor, Nazareth, Cana, Tiberias, Nablous [Nablus], Shechem, Samaria, etc.

Binding with bumping and wear to the corners, fairly modest rubbing to the boards, spine a bit dulled with shallow wear to the ends; text block cracked at the gutter, ca. 10 early text leaves and plates have come neatly unglued from the binding and are laid in loose (three of these with light bumping to the fore-edges wear they protrude from the text block); occasional offsetting to the text leaves, a few light spots and touches of soiling in the plate margins; presentation inscriptions on the front paste-down and endpaper; otherwise clean and sound, the plates quite crisp and fresh.