HISTORICAL DESCRIPTIONS OF NEW AND ELEGANT PICTURESQUE VIEWS OF THE ANTIQUITIES OF ENGLAND AND WALES: Being a Grand Copper-Plate Repository of Elegance, Taste, and Entertainment . . . containing a new and complete collection of superb views of . . . ruins and ancient buildings . . . bridges, cathedrals, churches; etc.

London: Printed for Alex Hogg, n.d (but 1786). hardcover. Rebacked as noted, covers show some scuffing, corners reinforced sometime in the distant past, 2 pages with mends to lower margins, otherwise text and plates very clean and quite free of foxing with scattered mostly minor offsetting from plates to text. Overall a very nice copy. Folio (40cm), original sheep rebacked retaining spine and lettering piece; iv, 42 pp. (introductory), the remaining text an unpaginated [520] pp + 247 plates, including 51 mostly full-page county and regional maps (some with 2 images on the plate), plans, and including a large folding plate at rear (a facsimile of the 1648 document indicting Charles II). 4-page subscriber list and 4-page index to the plates at rear. Plates (many with multiple images on the plate) include, besides castles and various antiquities, 3 each of English coins and seals.

The work was issued in 100 parts, apparently in rather random sequence. Gatherings are unsigned throughout and in this volume part numbering ceases after part 70. However, the instructions to the binder at the tail of the last index page makes suggestions for creating order and these have mostly been followed, though the Cambridgshire map is found late in the volume opposite the "Description of Cambridge Castle" rather than opposite the descriptive text for the County in part 31. Maps are by Thomas Kitchin and first appeared in the London Magazine from 1747-1760, except the Yorkshire map, which is by T. Conder, 1784. (See Whitaker: The Harold Whitaker Collection, Leeds, 1947, p53). According to Lowndes, the plates are copied from (Francis) Grose