[Rarebooks] fa: APPLETON'S 1875 ILLUSTRATED EUROPEAN GUIDE BOOK in Original Crimson Calf Wallet Binding

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, February 22. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/qgkqdqn

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


Appleton's European Guide Book Illustrated. Part I [and] Part II. Including England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Belgium, and Holland [and] Switzerland, Northern and Southern Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1875. Eighth edition. Two parts in one; thick 8vo (183 x 120 x 50 mm) in original wallet-style binding of crimson calf, spine and inner flap lettered in gilt, gilt page edges; 706 pp. plus numerous unpaginated advertisement leaves, maps, plates, index, etc.

A remarkable survivor in a well-preserved example of a binding designed to accompany the well-heeled traveler on his or her Grand Tour of the Continent. Now housed in a custom-made quarter morocco solander box of more recent vintage. Fairly modest wear, creasing and stains to the binding, most noticeable on the spine and flap as is to be expected; some foxing to the plates, intermittent light foxing to the bottom margins of the text leaves; six random leaves (three of them adverts) with crayon scribblings presumably made by a bored child who had been dragged to one site too many; otherwise clean and sound, securely bound. Front paste-down with the small label of noted book collector Peter A. Wick.

Profusely illustrated with steel-engraved views, in-text cuts and single- or double-page maps, and with scores of adverts, many with illustrations, for hotels, restaurants, tours, shops, etc., aimed at the Yankee tourist flush with cash (the binding's inner flap, for example, features a gilt-lettered plug for Messrs. Debenham and Freebody, Wigmore Street, London, "Proprietors of the Oldest Dry Goods Store…").