PICTURESQUE TOUR OF THE SEINE, FROM PARIS TO THE SEA: WITH PARTICULARS HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE

London: R. Ackermann, 1821. FIRST EDITION. 346 x 273 mm. (13 5/8 x 10 3/4"). 1 p.l. (title), viii, 177, [1] pp.
Publisher's red buckram, covers with blindstamped frame, upper cover with gilt titling, flat spine stamped with gilt strapwork panels and with gilt titling, all edges gilt. With engraved color vignette on title page, unsigned aquatint vignette at foot of last page, engraved color map, and 24 FINE HAND-COLORED AQUATINT PLATES by Augustus Pugin and John Gendall. Front pastedown with presentation bookplate to "Master E. Cockayne, / as the reward of merit, / by Mr. Bowling, / Milk Street Academy. / Sheffield, June 23rd, 1848." Abbey, "Travel" 90; Tooley 445. ◆Binding a little soiled, joints and extremities a bit worn, just the slightest offsetting from some plates onto text (one plate with offsetting from text, and half a dozen others with just a hint of the same), other trivial imperfections, but still A VERY DESIRABLE COPY, the binding sturdy and without any major defects, and the beautiful scenic plates with particularly attractive coloring.

This is an uncommonly seen copy in original publisher's cloth of one of the most beautiful of the Ackermann series of color plate books. The illustrations are all bright and full of action, and many of them, especially those provincial scenes with colorful rural people, are flooded with light that resonates from magnificent skies. As Hardie observes, "A coloured aquatint . . . Reproduces better than any other method the elusive beauties of a watercolor drawing. It has a delicacy, refinement, and purity that its successor the lithograph has never attained." This is not a terribly rare book, but it is uncommonly seen in cloth--the book is large and full of illustrations inviting avid readership, so that the publisher's insubstantial cloth binding now normally has either been replaced or is found in dilapidated condition. (Since 1975, ABPC lists six copies in cloth, two rebacked, one in shambles.)..