£395.00
First edition of J. R. Abbey’s monumental bibliographical catalogue devoted to British and Irish colour-plate and illustrated books of scenery produced between 1770 and 1860. Privately printed at the celebrated Curwen Press in 1952, the work catalogues examples from Abbey’s exceptional library, providing detailed bibliographical descriptions of aquatint and lithographic publications.
Illustrated throughout with reproductions of title pages, wrappers and plates, including colour illustrations, the volume remains an important reference work for collectors and dealers in British colour-plate books.
Bound in publisher’s cloth with red gilt-lettered spine label. A substantial and handsomely produced volume.
Year: 1952
Edition: First Edition
Publisher: Privately printed at the Curwen Press, London
Format: Large-format illustrated bibliographical catalogue
John Roland Abbey assembled one of the great twentieth-century collections of English illustrated books. His particular fascination was with the extraordinary flowering of aquatint, lithography and colour printing that transformed British book illustration during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Scenery of Great Britain and Ireland records one of the most important sections of that library. Rather than merely listing titles, Abbey documented copies bibliographically—recording bindings, plates, watermarks, publication details and issue points. The result became far more than a catalogue of one man’s collection: it became a standard reference for identifying and describing British colour-plate books.
The period covered, 1770–1860, encompasses the great age of the picturesque. Publishers and artists produced increasingly sophisticated illustrated books depicting Britain’s cities, country houses, churches, landscapes and antiquities. The present volume preserves a remarkably concentrated record of that publishing history.
Its production is itself noteworthy. Abbey had the catalogue privately printed by the Curwen Press, one of Britain’s distinguished twentieth-century fine presses, giving the reference work an appropriately handsome physical form.
This is both a collectable private-press bibliography and a serious reference work. Abbey numbers remain routinely encountered in rare-book cataloguing, particularly for British travel, topography and colour-plate books.
The volume therefore has several distinct attractions: association with the celebrated J. R. Abbey collection; importance to the bibliography of aquatint and lithography; fine production by the Curwen Press; extensive illustration; and continuing practical relevance to collectors, researchers and rare-book dealers.
For a specialist library devoted to illustrated books, British topography, printing history or bibliography, it is a particularly appropriate reference volume.
