A Bibliographical Account of the Principal Works relating to English Topography.

London: Printed by Richard and Arthur Taylor,, 1818. Finely bound by Riviere First edition, one of 250 copies only (see p. v), of what remains an invaluable work, this set in a most handsome Riviere binding with an excellent provenance, being from the distinguished library of Lord Brabourne (1829-1893). With a note in volume I, "Bought at Lord Brabourne's Sale, 28 June 1893"; the elaborately named Edward Hugessen Knatchbull-Hugessen, first Baron Brabourne of Brabourne was a well-known bibliophile and it is surely his purchase note in volume I that shows that he acquired the set from the fashionable London bookseller Bain in 1884 for seven guineas. Brabourne had a particular interest in English topography, and the marginal notes that pepper each volume are undoubtedly his. Attractive armorial bookplate in vol. I of John and Rosemary Pinches, writers on heraldry. a penciled note in volume III initialled by Rosemary Pinches, notes purchase at the Iveagh Bequest sale in the 1980s. After a peripatetic education, William Upcott (1779-1845) was apprenticed to a couple of London booksellers before becoming sub-librarian at the new London Institution in 1806. By this time he was already a keen collector of coins, trade tokens, and engravings, but, in his own words, "the disease" which had "the strongest hold [was] the autographic mania" and "in this he was a considerable pioneer, for although several late eighteenth-century collectors had accumulated autographs alongside their books and engravings, none had approached the pursuit with Upcott's single-mindedness" (ODNB). He brought both resolution and assiduity to his bibliographical survey of English topography, and following his death his extensive collections were purchased for the British Museum. Three volumes, octavo (225 x 140 mm). Late 19th-century red morocco by Riviere, spines with five raised bands each trimmed with a single gilt fillet, each compartment framed by paired gilt fillets and dog-tooth rolls, gilt lettered direct in second and third compartments, the remainder filled with trailing foliate tools and a central motif of a vase and foliage surrounded by circles and stars, sides with gilt French fillet border with corner rosettes and fleurons, edges with paired gilt fillets, prettily gilt turn-ins, French Curl on Nonpareil pattern endpapers, top edge gilt, others untrimmed. Engraved frontispiece to vols. I and II by William Brooks (London Institution and Interior of the Library of the London Institution), inserted at a later date and not issued with the work. Recent coloured armorial bookplate in each vol. of John Maurice Hawkins. Bindings profesionally refurbished, vol. II rejointed, vol. III sometime rebacked with the original spine laid down, Iveagh Bequest stamps (dated 1894) at head of each title page, some marginal annotations. A superior set. Lowndes IX, p. 2741.