Picturesque Views on the River Exe.

Tiverton.: Printed for J. Chaplin by T. Parkhouse., 1819.. Original green roan-backed paste-paper boards, black morocco label with gilt title ('Picturesque Views / ON THE / River Exe.') within gilt ruled and tooled borders.. Small folio. (298 x 236 mm).. Leaf with frontispiece verso, leaf with title and printed text illustrated with 6 plates, all aquatints by D. Havell (5) or F. C. Lewis (1) after H. Haseler (4), L. E. Reed (1) or Knight (1) alll with additional colour by hand, printer's credit 'Parkhouse, Printer, Tiverton' to foot of final leaf of text; the frontispiece 'Tiverton Bridge' is unsigned; some slight worming to the outer lower corner of many of the leaves not affecting image nor text. [PROVENANCE: Ownership signature in sepia ink to recto of frontispiece: 'Mrs Spurway / Pitt Rectory / Tiverton'; additional ex-libris to front pastedown: 'Ex-Libris / R Lionel Foster / Walliscote / Whitchurch / Oxon']. A scarce example of this bucolic pictorial tour of the River Exe.As per a pencil note to the front pastedown, 'Picturesque Views on the River Exe' is 'Beautiful & Rare' and uncommon on the market. Published anonymously, although the imprint details that it was printed for Jonathan Chaplin and the plates add the additional names of Henry Haseler and Thomas Clay, the work details the history of the towns and villages of the Exe in prose and the scenery of the river in illustration.The caption of the final plate 'Seaford Bridge, on the Exe' has been corrected in pencil - this may indicate an early issue - with the 'Sea' crossed through and 'Oak' added in pencil; the same hand has added an exclamation mark after the printed text: 'The bridge, though extremely dangerous!'. This supposition of an early issue is born out by Abbey Scenery 117 which gives the corrected title, i.e. 'Oakford Bridge ... &c.' and gives the watermarks of the text as 'R TURNER & SON / 1816' (as for this copy) but for the plates gives 'J WHATMAN / TURKEY MILL / 1821'; the Whatman watermark for the present copy is dated '1819'.'Spurway', the name of the first owner of the volume, is that of an old Devon family and at one time one of several joint owners of Tiverton Castle. The Mrs. Spurway of 'Pitt Rectory' is likely the wife of Reverend Spurway, the last of the Spurways to own a share of Tiverton Castle which he sold to Dorothy, Lady Carew.[Abbey Scenery 117].