The Antiquarian Itinerary. [STORER (James)].
The Antiquarian Itinerary, Comprising Specimens of Architecture, Monastic, Castellated, and Domestic: with other Vestiges of Antiquity in Great Britain. Accompanied with Descriptions.
332 engraved plates and woodcuts in the text.
First Edition. Seven volumes bound in three. 12mo. [156 x 105 x 123 mm]. Bound c.1840 in red goatskin, the covers with a gilt border of a thick and thin fillet and large arabesque foliate tools in the corners joined by a fillet. The spines divided into five panels by gilt tooled bands, lettered in the second and fourth, the others with geometric centres and arabesque corners, the edges of the boards tooled with a gilt roll, the turn-ins with a blind roll, bright green and gilt decorated endleaves, gilt edges. (Slightly rubbed).
London: [printed by W. Wilson for] Wm. Clarke, J. Murray, S. Bagster, J.M. Richardson, and Sherwood and Co, 1815 - [1818]
Light foxing to the plates but a very good copy. The binding would appear to date from about 1840, though it could be a few years earlier or later. There is an ink inscription on all three title-pages "W. J. Nash, Midford Castle, 1856". Midford Castle is the castellated Gothic tower to the south of Bath, built for Henry Disney Roebuck in c.1775 after a design by John Carter. The house was owned by the Conollys (a branch of the Castletown House clan) from 1810 until 1901.
The set has been very carefully put together, with the seven volumes arranged into alphabetical order by county, with the volumes lettered on the spine A-G, H-O, P-Z. The contents leaves, normally found in vol.VII have been bound at the front. The page signatures show each volume containing sections taken from each of the original seven volumes, now arranged in a most convenient alphabetical sequence. Each of the three volumes has a title-page, taken from the original volumes I-III, and the redundant title-pages for volumes IV-VII were discarded by the binder as there would have been no logical place to insert them.
Stock no. ebc6109