MARTIAL ACHIEVEMENTS OF GREAT BRITAIN (1815): FIRST ED

The battles depicted in the publication’s 51 plates almost all took place during the Napoleonic Wars, including the Peninsular War; they range from the 1799 British-backed Defence of Acre from Napoleon’s beseiging forces to the 1815 Battle of Waterloo, the triumphant defeat of the French Empire and the last major conflict to take place on European soil for forty years. Each plate is accompanied by a short textual commentary, quoting contemporary reports and dispatches usually from the Duke of Wellington to whom the book is dedicated.

The plates are based on drawings by W Heath, and were printed from aquatints made by Sutherland, Dubourg, Havell and Hill. The quality of the hand-painting that colours each plate is by any standards superlative and is testament to hour upon hour of painstaking labour. A painted deployment of light and shade enhances the tonal variations already present in aquatint; the subtlest shades are used to convey impressions of distance or obscurity; while the starkest of contrast effects are used to dramatise effects of explosion or flame.

Large quartos (11 x 13.5 inches). Vignette title; copper engraved title page; dedication plate with text; introduction; note on vignette title; list of subscribers (often omitted); table of contents; 51 plates with accompanying text. One plate and text (The Attack on the Road to Bayonne) have been bound out of sequence. Of the 51 military plates 39 retain their original tissue guards (and there has been no offsetting to the text facing those that don’t). Bound in midnight blue leather with gilt lettering to spines bound over marbled paper-covered boards; leather somewhat rubbed at edges, corners and joints. The binding is still secure and the pages and prints are in excellent, unblemished condition throughout. Each pastedown endpaper bears the 4.5 x 3 inch armorial bookplate of Lord Cheylesmore, one of a short-lived British baronetcy that existed over four generations of the plutocratic Eaton family between 1887 and 1974. (All the books’ previous owners must have been affluent; even the original sale price of 13/13/0 was, in 1815, an unthinkable expense for the vast majority of book collectors).

Postage: UK = Free, European Union & USA = £15, other destinations please enquire