The Plates from the large folio edition of The History of England, by David Hume, printed by R. Bowyer; A Series of One Hundred and Ninety-six Engravings, (in the Line Manner) by the First Artists in the Country, 1812

An impressive, and imposing, large folio volume of the engravings from the classic work by David Hume - almost 'elephant folio' in size. This large tome comprises the complete set of plates from the first folio edition of 'The History of England', following its first printing in 1754-1761. Published and printed by the same Bowyer/Bensley combination, the plates are prefaced with their dedications and expanded contents list.

A Series of One Hundred and Ninety-six Engravings, (in the Line Manner) by the First Artists in the Country, Illustrative of The History of England, comprizing Historical Subjects, Portraits, Naval and Military Engagements, Ruins of Ancient Castles, Coins, Medals &c. &c. Upon the Execution of Which Have Been Expended Forty-four Thousand Pounds: with An Historical Account of Each Subject, &c. &c. &c. The book is entitled 'Illustrations of the History of England' to the spine.

Printed for the Proprietor, R. Bowyer, 80 Pall Mall, by T. Bensley, Holt Court, Fleet Street, London. First edition, thus. The large folio edition of The History of England was published in  1806, and although the title page in this volume provides no date, it is listed as 1812 in Worldcat. This volume is indeed scarce and Worldcat only identifies 10 institutional holdings worldwide.

A rare example of this sumptuous volume (many such volumes would have been broken up for the prints long ago).

Bound with leather spine with raised bands and tooled gilt decoration. With leather corners with gilt borders, and red cloth over boards. The cloth is heavily worn and marked, with some tears and losses, and the leather is bumped, scuffed and worn to extremities. Rubbed joints, but all soundly bound.

There is moisture damage to the plain yellow endpapers and the blank endpapers at either end of the book, where a a couple of the blanks stick together. Red cloth reinforcement to inner hinges. The first 4 or 5 leaves at either end of the book have some foxed spotting to the pages edges, but the vast majority of the book is in excellent condition.

All printed on a high quality paper. The majority of the pages are beautifully clean and bright with only the occasional light mark. Full gilt edges to text block. The full page engravings are of the highest quality. There is a little offset marking opposite some plates as would be expected. The plates are finely detailed and images sharp and bright, making this a hugely impressive volume (and a very uncommon collection of these fine large folio plates).

Text in English.

Frontispiece + Title + (2) Dedications + 18pp Contents + 196 Engraved Plates.

Dimensions: Approx 486mm high x 350mm wide x 60mm deep (19 inches x 14 inches x 2.5 inches).

Weight: Approximately 7.11kg (unpacked).