A Tour in Scotland; MDCCLXIX / A Tour in Scotland, and Voyage to the Hebrides; MDCCLXXII / A Tour in Scotland. MDCCLXXII. Part II. 3 vols (set). (1774-1776). Volume I is the third edition 1774, Volume II the first edition 1774, and Volume III the first edition 1776.

Description

FULL PAGINATION: xiii, (1), 388 + (2), viii, 379, (1) + (2), iv, 481, (1), 34pp. Vol. I: A Tour in Scotland; MDCCLXIX, third edition. 1774. Warrington: W. Eyres. 21 plates (9 folding); 1 tailpiece. Lacking final advertisement leaf / Vol. II: A Tour in Scotland, and Voyage to the Hebrides; MDCCLXXII. 1774. Manchester: John Monk. 47 plates (22 folding) / Vol. III: A Tour in Scotland. MDCCLXXII. Part II. 1776. London: Benj. White. 47 plates (22 folding). As is often the case, bound into vol. III is the 34pp. ‘Additions to the Tour in Scotland’, published separately, likely in 1774, but with its two plates included in the vol. III plate-list. Numbering of vols I & II is transposed on spine labels. Original full tan calf, gilt decor to board edges. Rebacked in light brown morocco with remains of original backstrips (compartments with ornate gilt floral decor; two red gilt labels per spine) carefully laid down. Wear to board edges and corners. Raised bands to spines. 4tos (19.8 x 23.8cm). Replacement red and brown headbands. All edges marbled, top edges darkened. Three red ink marks to top edges of vol. III, one of them affecting top margin of pp. 83-87, most noticeably with red stain and tidemark to top margin of plate facing p. 84, just missing image. Original endpapers repaired at gutters. Hinges sound. Pencil inscrip. to inside front board of vol. I. Pictorial armorial bookplate to inside front board of all vols, of Henry Gale of Scruton, Yorkshire (likely Henry Gale, 1744-1821, grandson of the antiquary Roger Gale). Bookplates signed ‘Wm Darling fecit Newport St’: William Darling, engraver, active 1760-1790. Occasional scattered foxing, particularly to early and late pp. Some offsetting from plates. Closed tear to bottom margin of plate facing p. 14 in vol. I, not affecting image. A very little pencil sidelining to later pp. of vol. II. Thomas Pennant (1726-1798), Welsh naturalist, traveller, and writer. Pennant was already a celebrated naturalist when he undertook his 1769 tour of Scotland, concentrating on the highlands, ‘a region then little known by outsiders yet of interest for its natural history’ (ODNB). His account of this 1769 tour was first published in 1771; this 1774 publication is the third edition (the first quarto edn), considerably revised and enlarged, and with a completely new set of 21 plates, all by Moses Griffith (Powell, 1938, ‘The Tours of Thomas Pennant’, The Library XIX.2, pp. 131-52). A self-taught artist from Caernarfonshire, Griffith was taken into service by Pennant around 1769; Pennant had Griffith accompany him on his future tours and illustrate many of his works. Pennant’s second tour of Scotland, in 1772, was much more thorough than his earlier visit and was published in two volumes, of which the 1774 and 1776 quarto vols here are the first editions. Pennant was accompanied on this 1772 tour not only by Griffith but by a botanist and a Gaelic scholar, and he circulated detailed requests to local ministers and gentry in advance of his travel: ‘(r)emark all the principal places where the sea-fowl resort to; also, where eagles and falcons breed. Please to preserve any singular birds by slaying them; and collect insects of all kinds’ (see Powell, p. 141). He incorporated a description of Staffa by his fellow naturalist Joseph Banks, to whom he dedicated the first of the two volumes on the 1772 tour. Pennant’s 1769 tour had helped inspire Johnson and Boswell’s 1773 journey through Scotland, and Pennant’s 1774 vol. influenced Johnson’s account of his own travels in A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. Johnson looked askance at Pennant’s Whiggish sympathies, but defended his travel writing warmly: ‘he’s the best traveller I ever read; he observes more things than anyone else does’ (Boswell, Life, 3.274, 12 April 1778; see ODNB). ESTC T113910, T113907, T113911 & T113908 (the last for the ‘Additions to the Tour in Scotland’). Robust packaging. Tracking can be added to overseas orders on request.