Fifty-Seven Hand-Colored Aquatint Plates Including the Often Lacking Portraits and Pre-Publication Watermarks
Naval Achievements of Great Britain. from the year 1793 to 1817.
London: J. Jenkins, 1817.
Full Description:
JENKINS, James. The Naval Achievements of Great Britain from the Year 1793 to 1817. London: Printed for J. Jenkins, by L. Harrison, [n.d., ].
First edition, first issue with the uncolored vignette title and pre-publication watermarks of 1812 and 1816 on both text and plates. Large quarto (13 1/8 x 10 3/4 inches; 335 x 275 mm.). viii, [2] pp. (including dedication, introduction, and list of plates) and [74] leaves of descriptive text. Engraved title with vignette, uncolored. Complete with the two hand-colored frontispiece portraits of Nelson and St.Vincent and fifty-five hand-colored aquatint plates by T. Sutherland, J. Baily, and J. Jeakes after T. Whitcombe and Pocock. One uncolored plate with plan of the Bombardment of Algiers and plan of the Battle of Trafalgar. Bound with the list of subscribers. Tissue guards. Only three other copies on Rare Book Hub have had the two portraits in the past 20 years.
Contemporary full paneled calf, rebacked to style. Recornered. Boards tooled in blind and stamped and ruled in gilt. Spine stamped and lettered in gilt. Gilt board edges. Gilt dentelles. All edges gilt. Drab blue endpapers. Previous owner Joel Spitz's bookplate on front pastedown and same owner's small stamp on rear flyleaf. Some occasional toning to tissues. Plates are extremely clean and vibrant. Housed in a cloth slipcase. Overall a very good copy.
"'Collectors should note that evidence of early state in this book can be found in the title-page vignette, originally issued uncoloured, and coloured only in later issues.' (Abbey).
"As a record of naval events spanning a period of over twenty years Jenkins' Naval Achievements has no precedent. At no time prior to 1817 had a publisher attempted such a complete volume of documentary naval prints. It is the quality of the accuracy which makes Jenkins so valuable above all, and it is the pictures rather than the text to which the value can be attributed" (Roger Quarm, National Maritime Museum).
In a discussion of color plate books on Wellington and Waterloo (“a literature in themselves”), Prideaux distinguishes this volume and Jenkins’s 1814 companion volume, Martial Achievements, as “worthy of their theme; nor could one desire a finer record of heroic deeds” (pp. 223, 224).
Abbey, Life, 337. Tooley 282 (“More sought after than the Martial Achievements, it is becoming uncommon”).
HBS 69585.
$10,000.
Price: $10,000.00
Item #69585