The History of the Abbey Church of St. Peter's Westminster, its Antiquities and Monuments.

London: Printed for R. Ackermann by L. Harrison and J. C. Leigh,, 1812. Britain's national church in Regency colour plate First edition of this splendidly illustrated survey of Westminster Abbey, visually perhaps the finest publication on the building, issued by Rudolph Ackermann, the greatest publisher of colour books and prints of the age. The designs were produced by several leading artists, the text written by William Combe (renowned as author of Doctor Syntax), and the book subscribed to by most of the royal family and aristocracy. "It is a book which should be highly rated both as an exhaustive pictorial record of the Abbey and for its individual architectural plates, beautifully composed and aquatinted with the addition of discreet colour just sufficient to suggest the cloistered intimacy of sunlight filtered by lofty windows onto fretted stone, wood and metal" (Adams, p. 250). Two volumes, quarto (334 x 278 mm). Early 20th-century green half straight-grain roan by Morrell, spines lettered in gilt, green cloth sides, marbled endpapers, gilt edges. Portrait frontispiece of William Vincent, Dean of Westminster, and architectural plan in vol. I, 81 hand-coloured aquatint plates, watermarked 1808 as called for by Tooley, illustrations in text. 20th-century book label (Nathaniel Kevan of Deal) to front pastedown. Recoloured scrapes to leather, light foxing to contents. A very good copy. Abbey 213; Adams 108; Tooley 2. Bernard Adams, London Illustrated 1604-1851, 1983.