The Beauties of the Bosphorus, and The Danube Illustrated. 8 vols (set) including 168 plates

Description

~FULL PAGINATION: 24 pl., xii, 38 + 24 pl., 39-86 + 23 pl., map, 87-134 + 24pl., 135-164, iv, 20 + 23 pl., map, 21-68 + 24 pl., 69-116 + 13 pl., 117-180 + 12 pl., map, 181-236, 165-172, (8)pp. ~Original red cloth bindings, blind stamped decorative rules and pictorial gilt vignettes to front and rear boards (Ottoman man to front; river god (the Danube?) to rear), gilt decor and lettering to spines. All edges gilt. Folio (22 x 28cm). Spines slightly faded. Old paper library labels to spines. Mild wear to ends of spines and board corners, mild wear to corners. Small ink spot to front board of vol. 3. Primrose yellow endpapers. Slight starting to endpapers over inner hinges in some vols; hinges sound. Bottom corner of front endpaper turned in in vol. 3. Boards of vol 4 very slightly bowed. Spine of vol 6 slightly cocked. Second tissue guard in vol. 6 partially detached. Frontis and engraved title page to vols 1 & 8. Tissue guards to all plates. This is a combined volume, published near the start of the Crimean War (1853-56), and bringing together two popular recent travel works related to the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans, Julia Pardoe”s The Beauties of the Bosphorus (first published 1838) and William Beattie”s The Danube Illustrated (first published 1842). Both volumes were originally published with beautiful steel engraved plates by the topographical artist William Henry Bartlett (1809-1854), included here. The Danube Illustrated also includes numerous in-text wood engravings, by artists including Josiah Wood Whymper. Title pages for both works and appendix to rear of vol. 8, describing additional illustrations ”made by the late W. H. Bartlett, only a few months previous to his lamented demise”. 4pp. of advertisements to rear of each volume. Undated, but judging by the publication dates of works in the advertisement pages, the eight ”Divisions” of this work were published in 1854-55. With publisher”s note bound into vol. 7, indicating that the work has been expanded from seven to eight divisions at no extra cost, on account of ”the numerous Wood Engravings which have been introduced into Dr. Beattie”s interesting description of the Danube.” A publisher”s note bound into vol. 8 warns subscribers to beware of a scam in which criminals were evidently absconding with books on the pretext of taking them for binding at Virtue & Co. Julia Pardoe (bap. 1804, d. 1862), novelist and travel writer. In 1835 Pardoe accompanied her father to Constantinople, and her subsequent ”The City of the Sultan and Domestic Manners of the Turks” provided what was, for its time and origin, ”probably the most detailed, most sympathetic description of the Turkish élite” (Melman 1992, p. 50). Her The Beauties of the Bosphorus was likewise both popular and influential: Pardoe was an evocative and entertaining writer (Elizabeth Barrett Browning praised her ”word painting” (ODNB)), and William H. Bartlett”s illustrations helped shape the Victorian image of the Ottoman Empire. Dr William Beattie (1793-1875) was likewise a prolific travel writer and a frequent collaborator with William H. Bartlett. In an 1837 letter to William Beattie, Bartlett described Constantinople as ”a vast phantasmagoria – very much like a moving diorama full of scenes from fairy tales. […] [T]he oriental light – which without the accidents of light and shade usual in the north – is sufficient to produce the most brilliant relief combined with a softness and harmony equally beautiful” (quoted in El-Hussein & Salmon, 2007, p. 53). Two significant works of nineteenth-century travel writing, with plates from the golden age of Victorian travel-book illustration, brought together in a snapshot of British perceptions of the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans during the Crimean War. Complete, attractive set. ~Robust packaging. All UK orders trackable, others on request.