[Rarebooks] fa: PICTURESQUE EUROPE: THE BRITISH ISLES - Birket Foster, etc. - Two Folio Volumes c. 1876

[ArCh]

Auction ends Sunday, November 19. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/mrsk4pr2

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA

[Birket Foster, et al (illus.):] Picturesque Europe. The British Isles. With Illustrations on Steel and Wood by the Most Eminent Artists. London: Casssell, Peter, Galpin & Co. [ca. 1876]. Two volumes, heavy folios (33x26 cm), in original publisher's forest green cloth with beveled edges, front covers and spines decorated in black and gilt, all page edges gilt; with the half-titles and publisher's adverts; tissue-guarded steel-engraved plates and in-text woodcut illustrations.

From the golden age of Victorian book production, when armchair travelers liked their travel books lavishly illustrated and as heavy as a steam engine. With 26 steel-engraved plates by Birket Foster and others, and innumerable woodcut illustrations, many of them full-page, depicting the sites and scenery of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Bindings show some modest rubbing, wear to the corners and spine ends, short tears to the cloth along the joints, spines a bit dulled. Not surprisingly, considering the weight of the text blocks, the inner hinges of both volumes are splitting, but still holding; the contents with some spotting to and from the steel-engraved plates, occasional light damp-stains to the margins, otherwise very clean and bright. Front paste-downs with the armorial bookplate of Thomas Hopkins, bearing the later signature of John Wyekham Hopkyns.