[Rarebooks] fa: JOHN MILTON - PARADIS PERDU/PARADISE LOST 1792 - 2 Folio vols./Color Engravings

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, May 29. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/hoflz22

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI


John Milton: Le Paradis Perdu, poeme par Milton; Edition en Anglais et en Français, Ornee de douze Estampes imprimees en couleur d'apres les Tableaux de M. Scahll. Paris: chez Defer de Maisonneuve, rue du Foin S. Jacques, no. 11, 1792. First edition thus. Two volumes, folio (34.5 cm; 13 5/8 in.), in full period marbled calf with gilt-tooled borders, turn-ins and spine decorations, gilt-lettered morocco spine labels, marbled endpapers, all page edges gilt; [4], viii, 391, [1] pp.; [4], 377, [1] pp.; with the half-title pages and 11 (of 12) color engravings after Jean Frederic Schall. Cohen-De Ricci 708.

Text in English and French. Lacking the plate for Book II, which appears never to have been bound in, but in all other respects a complete and handsome example of a spectacular production, one of the earliest works with engravings printed in color. Fine period French bindings with some rubbing, edge-wear and bumps to the corners, scattered small traces of white (paint?) to the spines, boards of vol. II with two old scuffs/snags to the leather; contents with a few occasional small spots and light finger soiling, else very clean, crisp and bright. All the plates with tissue guards loosely laid in. Title-pages with the signature of Joseph Robert Hownam, presumably Lt. Joseph Robert Hownam of the Royal Navy (d. 1859) who saw action during the Napoleonic Wars at Copenhagen, Madeira and in the Mediterranean, and later gained notoriety as part of the retinue of Queen Caroline, testifying in the divorce proceedings the Prince Regent brought against her.