The Bertrams.: A Novel. In Three Volumes.

London: Chapman & Hall,, 1859. Curiously uncommon" - Sadleir First edition, an attractive set of Trollope's "curiously uncommon book" (Sadleir), much of the action of which takes place in Jerusalem and the Holy Land, "the most extended use of his travel experience in a major novel" ( p. 169). "Toward the beginning and end of this work, the hero, George Betram, travels in Palestine and Egypt, occasionally touched by Oriental romance or spiritual insight, but mainly finding himself in situations that undermine such lofty sentiments. The filth in the streets, the torture of a Turkish saddle, the outrageous assaults by would-be guides, all these and more prove fatal to romanticized perception. Moreover, George's access to what is foreign in the places he visits is checked by the fact that he moves among his countrymen and stays in the hostelries recommended to the English, institutions that create an enveloping little England abroad" (Buzard, ibid.). Provenance: delightful and highly appealing bookplates of Ernest G. Mocatta (1849-1927), City stockbroker, finely engraved by the bookplate specialist Charles William Sherborn; and H. C. Drayton, chairman of the British Electric Traction Company and an important collector of Defoe and Swift, engraved by the distinguished British printmaker Alfred Charles Stanley Anderson. Three volumes, octavo (186 x 118 mm). Finely bound by Zaehnsdorf in tawny half morocco, spines with five low raised bands decorated with multiple gilt fillets closed with foliate finials, gilt lettered direct in second and fourth compartments, foliate motif in others, sides and corners trimmed with a single gilt fillet, marbled sides, gilt edges, marbled endpapers. Housed in a custom brown buckram slipcase. Bindings lightly rubbed and scuffed, faint toning to contents, else internally clean; a very good set indeed. James Buzard in Carolyn Dever and Lisa Niles, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Anthony Trollope, Cambridge University Press, 2011; Sadleir, Trollope 8, p. 267.