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A COLLECTION OF NINE WORKS IN 12 VOLUMES (see below).
(London: R. Blamire, T. Cadell Jr. and W. Davies, 1792-1809). 230 x 147 mm. (9 1/8 x 5 1/8"). 12 volumes. FIRST EDITIONS OF "Western Parts of England," "Hampshire, Sussex, and Kent," and "Cambridge, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and North Wales."
Extremely pleasing contemporary emerald green straight-grain morocco, gilt, covers framed with a gilt fillet with small floral cornerpieces surrounding an interlaced double rule studded with small floral tools, double raised bands separated by a pentaglyph and metope roll, spines lettered in gilt, turn-ins gilt, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. WITH A TOTAL OF 167 PLATES in aquatint after illustrations by Gilpin. Lacking one plate in "Forest Scenery" volume 2. Cambridge, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and North Wales: Abbey Scenery 15. "Western Parts of England": Abbey Scenery 26. "Forest Scenery": Abbey 149, Henrey 750. "Hampshire, Sussex, and Kent": Abbey Scenery 150. "Mountains and Lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland": Abbey Scenery 183 (first edition); "Highlands of Scotland": Abbey Scenery 487 (third edition); "River Wye": Abbey Scenery 546 (the 1800 edition). See also Francesca Orestano, "The Revd William Gilpin and the Picturesque," Garden History Vol. 31, No. 2 (Winter, 2003), pp. 163-179. Offsetting from the plates, one small repaired tear, one volume (only) with moderate foxing, spines sunned to slightly varying shades of light green, very minor spotting to some of the boards, otherwise THE SET IN A REMARKABLY FINE STATE, with joints unworn and only trivial signs of use.
Uniformly bound in a set that adds a swath of gilt and green to a shelf, these attractively illustrated volumes are the "picturesque tours" that helped revolutionize British aesthetics and domestic tourism. The products of William Gilpin (1724-1804), a schoolmaster and minister of slender means, this group of publications created a new style of travel book, accurate and warm, but free from a false or vague enthusiasm. Literary scholar Francesca Orestano describes the enormous influence of Gilpin's philosophy of the picturesque tour: "its simple rules, its easy implementation as a leisure activity, available to the not so rich, to the unacademic dilettante, to women--goes beyond the exclusive domain of high art to become part of middle-class culture." The cultural impact of these works extended beyond the popularity of touring; they also had a marked aesthetic impact, changing the course of landscaping from the mannered to the picturesque, and popularizing the sketch as a form of art. Orestano writes that "the spontaneous unfinished quality of picturesque sketches had a more pervasive cultural spread than other techniques, which were more expensive, requiring teachers, tools and pigments. Sketching instead, with a minimal set of tools, allowed for the reader's response to dovetail into the fragment provided by the artist." Gilpin's own sketches are reproduced in these volumes in etching and aquatint, using an innovative warm tinting in the plates to create a gentle effect. The plates are distinctively atmospheric, grainy, and somber, and their general lack of highly realized detail suggests that they are meant to convey the abstract, rather than the particular. While not individually rare, to find Gilpin's tours together and so agreeably bound and well preserved represents a very special opportunity--the original leather is of a very high quality, and apart from the fading, there is little that detracts from the books' original condition. The nine books in the set--which comprise all of the major works by Gilpin--are: "Observations on the River Wye" (1792), "Observations on the Western Parts of England" (1798), "Observations. . . on Several Parts of Great Britain; Particularly the High-Lands of Scotland" (1792), "Observations. . . on Several Parts of England; Particularly the Mountains and Lakes of Cumberland, and Westmoreland" (1792), "Observations on. . . Cambridge, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, also on Several Parts of North Wales" (1809), "Observations on the Coasts of Hampshire, Sussex, and Kent" (1804), "Remarks on Forest Scenery" (1794), "An Essay on Prints" (1792), and "Three Essays: on Picturesque Beauty; on Picturesque Travel; and on Sketching Landscape" (1794). (ST20892)
Price: $12,000.00