•  Publisher's quarter red cloth, stamped in blind on sides and in gold on spine. Cloth starting at joints, and splitting over edges and corners; spine tips off. Waterstains on first five leaves, intermittent light foxing in margins, pencilling to front endpapers. Minor bubbling to front and rear pastedowns, front endpaper chipped. (756)

•  Original illustrated and printed wrappers, dusty and a little chipped.

The volume is illustrated with six copper-engraved plates (five of which are folding) as well as an additional engraved title-page, 13 full-page engravings, and two in-text images. There is an extensiveindex.

•  Bitting 89; Palau 66773; Vicaire 174.   Contemporary vellum, spine with inked title; vellum darkened, spine title faded, spine with lined-through call number. Front pastedown with old cataloguing and Canadian bookseller's label affixed; front free endpaper and back pastedown with institutional rubber-stamps and the former with a slip affixed noting acquisition detail. One leaf with outer margin chipped, not touching text; faint waterstaining in upper margins of a few leaves.  (23368)

This particular copy seems to have incurred someone’s personal wrath, as the plate illustrating the allegory of Wisdom has had its central (nude) female figure excised.

•  Contemporary mottled calf framed in triple gilt fillets, spine gilt extra, all page edges marbled; binding with expectable acid-pitting and minor cracking of the leather over the spine and joints. One (and only one) signature foxed, leaves otherwise clean. A handsome book, defaced in a way that is depressing but also interesting.

•  Not in Brinkman. Contemporary cartonné binding covered in decorative printed paper, shown above right; spine showing a small undarkened area where label is now lacking. Front joint tender. Lacking pp. 33/34 and 39/40; some signatures loosening. Pages with a very few small spots, otherwise clean and pleasing.

There are two states of this edition; in the present state p. 1 has the words “Introductory dialogue” set in solid roman capitals, and the first line of the poem reads “Father Time! ’tis well we are met” rather than “Father Time! ’tis well we’re met.” The paper in vol. I is watermarked with the dates 1813, 1814, and 1815, while in vol. II the watermarks are 1814 and 1815.

Binding: Signed binding by Riviere & Son: 19th-century mottled calf, covers framed in gilt triple fillets with gilt rosettes at corners; round spines with raised bands, the whole gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels; double-rule gilt fillets on board edges; gilt inner dentelles. All edges gilt.

•  Abbey, Life, 263; NSTC 2C32764. Bindings as above, carefully and neatly rebacked preserving original spines, corners and joints showing slight wear. Vol. I with short edge nicks to upper margins of two leaves, not touching text; last few leaves and plates of vol. II with small area of light staining to outer margins, not touching text and not obtrusive in images. A beautiful set.

Binding: Signed binding by Riviere & Son: 19th-century mottled calf, covers framed in gilt triple fillets with gilt rosettes at corners; round spines with raised bands, the whole gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels; double-rule gilt fillets on board edges; gilt inner dentelles. All edges gilt.

•  Abbey, Life, 264. Tooley 410;.NSTC 2C32763. Binding as above, neatly rebacked preserving original spine, showing only very minor traces of wear. Without the advertising leaf. Some faint offsetting and spotting surrounding plates, otherwise clean.

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

•  NSTC 2C33645.   Contemporary half morocco and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title and compartment decorations; edges and extremities rubbed, joints showing minor wear. Private collector's bookplate on front pastedown. Some light offsetting around plates; map with light foxing.In fact, a handsome copy. (20636)

•  ESTC T75355; Hugo, Bewick Collector, 40; Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature, 420. Recent quarter calf over marbled paper–covered sides and leather edges tooled in blind, spine with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels and with gilt-stamped decorations within compartments. Title-page with inked annotations; dedication leaf and a few other pages very faintly stamped by a now-defunct institution. One upper outer corner repaired. Pages age-toned, with occasional foxing and some offsetting around the plates; frontispiece and title-page more notably browned.

The detailed engraved frontispiece, by "Gio. Batta Sintes" after "Nicolo Gadim," shows St. Catherine leading Pope Gregory XI back into Rome after his decision to leave Avignon. There are also two finely engraved plates by Guillaume Vallet. The first, after Raphael Vanni, shows the B.V.M. looking down with favor on an allegorical figure of Siena. The other, after Carlo Maratta, shows (under the title of this work) a woman watering the tree of the arts from which cherubs gather fruit. This is the first of two editions, a second having appeared in 1669. It is handsomely printed in a large roman type with a few woodcut historiated initials and a tailpiece.

Provenance:  Huge (27.8 x 18.3 cm, 11" x 7.25") armorial bookplate of "William Stirling Maxwell" on the front pastedown; his arms also appearing as a supra-libros stamped in blind on the front cover, and his monogram similarly stamped on the rear cover.

•  DeBacker-Sommervogel, II, 1390–91 & III, 678 (imprint and authorship information found here). Quarter calf, spine gilt-lettered, with vellum covers decorated as above; front cover detached, back joint starting. Pencilled notations on recto of front pastedown, and further notation, in ink and denoting authorship, on verso of front free endpaper. Pages lightly cockled; occasional foxing and soiling, the latter in the top margins of pages and plates, not obscuring print.

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•  NSTC 2C42639; Goldsmiths’-Kress 26080; not in Maggs, Bibl. Asiatica. On Crawfurd, see: Dictionary of National Biography. Publisher’s dark green cloth, blind-stamped, spines with gilt-stamped title; spines very slightly sunned and showing faint traces of now-absent paper labels, cloth lightly rubbed at corners and spine extremities. Hinges cracked (inside). Front pastedowns rubber-stamped (no other institutional markings). Title-pages with pencilled owner’s name in upper margins; contents pages with inked owner’s name dated 1865. Frontispiece, plates, and a few pages in proximity to plates lightly to moderately foxed; one plate in vol. II torn from inner margin, tear not touching image.Absorbing reading, evocative images.