TYROL AND THE SKIRT OF THE ALPS

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1880. 171 pages, 4 pages ads, plus engraved frontispiece. Also illustrated with one full-page engraving (reckoned in the pagination) and numerous engravings in the text. Original pictorial mauve cloth, over beveled boards, attractively stamped in green, black, and gold, with various floral patterns. Blue endpapers printed in floral pattern. [23.2 cm.] A very good copy. Spine a little sunned, slight wear to spine ends and corners, small area of soil to upper corner of front board. Internally clean, with just a few faint traces of foxing near upper edge of plates and facing pages. FIRST EDITION. George Edwin Waring, Jr. (1833-1893) was a prominent American sanitary engineer and agriculturalist. He was the agricultural and drainage engineer of New York's Central Park, a colonel in the Union cavalry during the Civil War, manager of the Ogden Farm, a cattle breeder who was the first to bring Jersey stock to the U.S., and the designer of the Memphis sewer system, a landmark achievement in American urban improvement. He was also the author of a number of books, including this account of travel in the Austrian Alps. While there are occasional comments on agriculture and irrigation, the work is not of a professional nature, but the observations of an educated observer who was enamored with mountain life, including the people, the small towns and villages, and the natural landscape. Morris & Levin, "The Art of Publishers' Bookbindings, 1815-1915," 63 (variant with brown coated endpapers).