The Story of the London Parks [EXTRA ILLUSTRATED w/ORIGINAL ENGRAVINGS AND AQUATINTS; 16 IN COLOR]

London: Chatto and Windus, 1860. First edition. Octavo. (2) 208, 209-490 (1)pp., 354 plates. Bound in Order of the Garter three-quarter brown leather over marlbed boards, gilt emblems and ruling on covers, gilt lettering (including date 1860) and tooling on spines; raised bands. The emblem gilt impressed with "Honi Soit Qui Mal Pense (shamed be whoever thinks ill of it)," the motto of the Order of the Garter. Topedges gilt. Marbled endpapers. Frontispieces. Vignette on title page. Headpiece illustrations. Red ribbon markers. Unique copy, extra-illustrated with three hundred and six additional bound in engravings, some of them hand-colored.

OCLC lists seven editions published between 1870 and 1900, and one 2009 reprint by Athena Press, Tokyo. When indicated the pages are listed at 490 without reference to a two volume edition, and the number of illustrations on plates in these publications is listed with forty-eight or less.

Our edition, a publication with in-text illustrations plus a total of 354 plates (306 more than in any listed edition), is a unique edition with added engravings and aquatints showing portraits of the British ruling class, palaces and prominent buildings as well as scenic renderings of the Hyde Park and general landscapes. The plates, some of them cuttings from publications, compliment and illustrate the text of the facing pages. Sixteen of the plates are in color, including a two-fold symbolic battle scene by Rolandson. Of the 338 b/w illustrations two are folding plates. One of the Orchestra Organ in Westminster by W. & J. Walker, and one of the Temple of Concord by J. Pass.

The volumes contain engravings, some printed to tissue paper, lithographs, drawings and woodcuts, several of them fit into cutout framing or pasted to art paper. Many of the portraits with facsimile signatures, several in actual handwriting. Several of the artist listed in the comprised list of artworks below are represented with several works and a seizable number with scarce or without any identifiers but the reference in the descriptive text on facing pages. Some of the artwork with damp-staining or foxing and occasional offseting to facing pages. Several oversize plates folded to fit. Minor wear to binding. Vol. I: Albertus Dürer, following page 10, Francois-Seraphin Delpech, facing 11, Arthur Lord Capel, 17 with cutout, William Richardson (British artist), Holl (Thomas, Lord Fairfax/ with biographical printed cutout, 26. ), van Dyk, 29, Ozias Humphrey, 47, John Thompson, 56, P. Lely (Dutch painter who bacame a dominant portrait painter to the court) several, Anthony van Dyck (also court painter in England/ Princess of Orange), 69, Thomas Simpson (Kensignton Palace), 70, UNIDENTIFIED ENGRAVING OF Pasquale Paoli, signed by the Corsican statesman presumably during his exile in Britain 1769, 134, James Roberts landscape engraving, 156, lithograph drawing of Mary Robinson as Perdita in The Winter's Tale, 1799, attributed to William Ridley, 170, steel engraving of Lady Jersey by Leopold Beyer, 183, Engraving of Prime Minister William Wyndham Grenville by T. A. Dean, Grenville facsimile signature, 185, Hyde Park Corner 1822 in color by George Cruikshank, 208

Vol. II: Engraving of the Chinese Bridge by William Wallis, frontispiece, a lithograph of Charles Ferdinand D'Artois, Duc de Berry by Francoise-Séraphin Delpech with signature, 212, the Persian Ambassador in color, unidentified, 233, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld by Holl, 251, The Grotto at Oatlands, engraving by Angus, 256, The Fair Circassian by James Thompson, with additonal color rendering, 258, an color rendering of the Basin in the Green Park, St. James, 287, The Sommerset House, drawn and engraved for Dougdale's "England & Wales," 302, an unidentified print of a drawing of Lady Morgan, the author of "O'Donnel," 314, a color reproduction of The Royal Palace of St. James Next The Park, a so-called "vue d'Optique" or "perspective view" popular at the time, published by Bowles & Carver, 320, engraving of Miss Price by Sir Peter Lely, 351, two-fold engraving of Westminster Abbey by W. & J. Walker, 467, stipple engraving by J. Thomson, 468, hand-colored collection of headdresses, Eastgate, 469.