Picturesque Views of the Principal Seats of the Nobility and Gentry in England and Wales

London: Harrison & Co.. [1786].

First edition. 205x260mm. One hundred engravings of country houses in England and Wales with, on the opposite page a brief description of the house. Bleinheim Palace gets four engravings and four pages of description. Tissue guards. Copper engravings by Birrell, Walker, Ellis, Fittler and others after Burney, Courbould, Dayes, Robert Nixon, Malton and others. Handsomely bound in red morocco. Upper and lower covers with a green morocco border on which is tooled, in gilt, a greek key design. Inside this is a further border of acanthus leaves. Spine lavishly decorated in gilt with black label lettered in gilt. Gilt decorated turn-ins, marbled endpapers. Corners bumped and a little word and some rubbing to joints but overall this is a very smart binding, fitting the grand subject matter of the book. The late eighteenth century is pretty much the high point of the classical English country house and this splendid collection of engravings captures the period beautifully.