[With a superb local provenance and Stoker association]. A History of Whitby and Streoneshalh Abbey; With a Statistical Survey of the Vicinity to the Distance of Twenty-five Miles.

Whitby; Clark and Med, 1817., 1817. Hard Cover. FIRST EDITION. Tall octavo, 2 vols. pp. x, 470; [5] 472-953, [1]. A large paper, uncut copy in original publisher's cloth. With large folding map in colour, as well as Charlton's 1778 Plan of the Town & Harbour with woodcuts, etchings & engravings throughout, with all plates as called for. All edges uncut. Bound in the publisher's original burgundy cloth with paper title labels laid on. Small patches of damp damage to cloth and endpapers and some very minor scattered foxing. With a few instances of pencil annotations in a nineteenth century hand. A clean, uncut copy. From the library of Katherine Jesse Repington (nee Cholmley) [1776-1847] of Whitby Hall, as denoted by her husband Charles Edward Repington's engraved armourial bookplate and her name printed and underlined in the subscribers' list; with the couple also notably referenced in the work itself. The Cholmley Family have been inextricably linked with Whitby lore for over 400 years. It was Katherine's maternal Aunt and Uncle that allegedly inspired the infamous carriage scene in Bram Stoker's Dracula - drawn from the local legend of Baron Mulgrave riding in his black rattling carriage from nearby Mulgrave Castle in his nocturnal visits to his teenage lover, Anne-Elizabeth Cholmley. Anne-Elizabeth tragically died in childbirth a year after their marriage at just 18. Prior to her marriage Katherine lived in Cholmley House or Whitby Hall, a rambling banqueting hall on the grounds of Whitby Abbey, built by the Cholmleys in 1692 and which now houses Whitby Abbey Museum. A further notable Whitby association of this copy is the early twentieth century blind-stamp and ownership signature of D. S. Ramsdale [circa 1860-], a local Whitby Sea-Captain and donor of various naval artworks to the Whitby Museum. Laid-in to vol. 1 is an Edwardian pink illustrated business card for H. Ducks bathing wear sellers of Whitby. A very attractive, uncut, large paper copy with extensive provenance steeped in Whitby lore.