Syria The Holy Land & Asia Minor Illustrated. In A Series Of One Hundred and Twenty Views, Drawn From Nature (3 Vols.)
London: Fisher, Son, & Co., [ca. 1842]. Hardcover. Large Quarto. [6] II, 3-80, [2] 76, [2] 100 [4]pp. 120 plates, incl. two maps and three vignette titles. Original green pebbled morocco with gilt tooling and ruling along edges of covers, gilt lettering, ruling and tooling on spines; raised bands, and protected by modern mylar. Gilt edges. Endpapers yellow. Engraved vignette titles.
The author, John Carne, left England in 1821, and spent much time traveling in Israel/Palestine and in Constantinople, Greece, the Levant and Egypt. It is one of the few works of that time to include what is present-day Lebanon. The book, with plates by Bartlett, Purser, and Allom, was published some time after Carne returned to England, initially in thirty parts of four plates each. Many of the plates in volume 3 are after drawings by Thomas Allom, commissioned by the publishers to complete the illustrations. This work contains 2 full page maps and 118 steel-engraved plates depicting views throughout Syria and Asia Minor, all protected by tissue-guards. All volumes with list of engravings at front, volume three with general index at rear.
Binding with light rubbing and scuffing along edges, slightly more pronounced at top foredge of front cover of volume three. All three volumes lightly starting at inside covers but firm. Volume one with engraved bookplate on inside front cover, signed Alfred Bilbrough, May, 1908. All three volumes with medium seize O printed to front free endpapers. Volume three with bump at lower spine, lightly at foredge, and some pages and plates with water stains at top margins, not affecting images. Eighty of the engravings are fine with none or very light foxing in margins. Thirty-six engravings with light or minor damp-staining in plates, four engravings with heavy damp-staining in images. Blocks lightly age-toned. Good- to near fine condition. Item #54385
Price: $950.00