“THESE VOLUMES ACCOMPLISH FOR COLOR PRINTING WHAT PYNE’S ROYAL RESIDENCES DID FOR AQUATINT ENGRAVING” (RAY): PICTURESQUE VIEWS OF THE SEATS OF THE NOBLEMEN, WITH 240 FINE COLOR-PRINTED PLATES

MORRIS, Rev. F.O. and LYDON, Alexander Francis. A Series of Picturesque Views of Seats of The Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland. London: William McKenzie, [1864-80]. Six volumes. Quarto, original full red pebbled morocco, elaborately gilt-decorated spines and beveled covers with armorial centerpieces, raised bands, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. $2800.

Early edition of this beautifully illustrated set of views of the homes of English and Irish gentry, each volume with frontispiece and 39 full-page plates printed in color. Very handsomely bound in publisher’s deluxe full morocco-gilt.

"Benjamin Fawcett of Driffield in Yorkshire was the leading provincial color printer of the age… Fawcett's most interesting works were the result of his collaboration over many years with the watercolor painter Alexander Francis Lydon. The Seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen is the most ambitious of these joint ventures… The spirit in which Fawcett and Lydon worked was not in the least antiquarian. Indeed, the accompanying commentary by Fawcett's habitual collaborator, the Reverend F.O. Morris, records many recent events in the careers of the gentry living in these stately homes. In every scene the lawns are clipped, the hedges trimmed, and the buildings in sparkling repair. There are virtually no people, but one can easily imagine the action of Daniel Deronda, or The Egoist, or The Duke's Children unrolling before such backdrops. It may be fairly said that these volumes accomplish for color printing what Pyne's Royal Residences did for aquatint engraving" (Ray, The Illustrator and the Book in England, 66). Ray, 100 Outstanding Illustrated Books Published in England 63.