1872 First Edition "Picturesque America" with Engravings
Item Details
A first edition of the 1872 first volume of the series, Picturesque America or, The Land We Live In edited by noted poet, journalist and New York Evening Post editor William Cullen Bryant and published by D. Appleton and Company, New York. The book is 568 pages and includes writings and steel engravings by such noted illustrators as Harry Fenn (English, 1837-1911) and Granville Perkins (American, 1830-1895), describing beautiful places in North America. This is a treasure of American history.
Picturesque America was the first comprehensive pictorial representation of the entire continental United States as it had extended by 1872. Bryant explains its historical significance: “It is the design of the publication entitled Picturesque America to present full descriptions and elaborate pictorial delineations of the scenery characteristic of all the different parts of our country. . . . Among our White Mountains, our Catskills, our Alleghenies, our Rocky Mountains, and our Sierra Nevada, we have some of the wildest and most beautiful scenery in the world. On our majestic rivers — among the largest on either continent — and on our lakes — the largest and noblest in the world — the country often wears an aspect in which beauty is blended with majesty; and on our prairies and savannas the spectator, surprised at the vastness of their features, finds himself, notwithstanding the soft and gentle sweep of their outlines, overpowered with a sense of sublimity. . . . there are innumerable places which lie out of the usual path of our artists and tourists; and many strange, picturesque, and charming scenes, sought out in these secluded spots, will, for the first time, become familiar to the general public through these pages.”
The title page goes on to describe the book as “A delineation by pen and pencil of the mountains, rivers, lakes, forests, water-falls, shores, canons (sic), valleys, cities, and other picturesque features of our country, with illustrations on steel and wood, by eminent American American artists.” Each chapter of the book provides a detailed description of a scenic American locale by an author who is familiar with it, and each chapter is illustrated with a copious number of illustrations of various types. The steel-cut and plates are printed on thicker white paper protected by tissue paper, whilst the other steel and wood plates are printed on regular paper. The end-papers are custom marbled.
The heavy boards of this volume is bound in polished brown calfskin, with stamped floral and graphical patterned tooling to both boards, and elaborate gilded titling to the front cover. The spines are decorated with tooled insignia, gilt lettering, and raised bands. The page block is gilded on all exposed edges.
Condition
-the pages are yellowed consistent with age, and there is considerable foxing. The calfskin cover is rubbed clean in some areas, and the book has suffered BB gun shot holes, four to the front cover and one to the back cover. The shot did not penetrate the pages. A lower section of the front spine attachment to the cover is split. The marbled frontispiece and tissue have tattered edges. Inside the front cover is written in ink script, " Charles B Rose’s(?) Property, January 19, 1875." Inside the front page is written in pencil the number “1964.” Some water staining is also evident.
Dimensions
Item #
16CIN034-175
