The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt & Nubia

London: Day & Son, 1856. 1st quarto edition. 6 vols. in 3. Complete with 2 maps, 242 tinted litho plates (including a portrait of Roberts) and 6 tinted litho title-pages. Original gilt armorial blue cloth binding. 29 cm. This set was recently resewn and recased with hinges reinforced with modern dark binder's tape. All edges gilt. Joints rubbed with some loss of color. The resewing has tightened the volumes so they do not lay flat when opened. All tissue guards present, except between the Roberts portrait and the first tinted litho title-page and preceding the vignette title-page in Vol. 3. Foxing, present on only a minority of leaves, is mostly modest and mostly confined to the margins. Heaviest foxing is on the Roberts portrait frontis -- foxing mostly confined to the margins on the portrait of Roberts but substantial and uniform on the blank side) and on the unprotected vignette title-page in Vol. 3. The yellow endpapers are so clean that it is hard not to wonder if they are modern replacements. Small binder's ticket (Mehling Bookbindery) in lower left corner on rear pastedowns. Small chip on outer margin of the Roberts portrait. A couple of short tears mended with Filmoplast (an adhesive paper mending tape). Two plates identified as frontises on the plate lists are found a few pages into the text rather than facing those title-pages. An appealing set.