RAMESES; AN EGYPTIAN TALE : WITH HISTORICAL NOTES ON THE ERA OF THE PHARAOHS.

London : for G. B. Whittaker / Bath : John Upham / Exeter : Charles Upham, 1824. First edition. "One of the most intellectual and imaginative productions of the age" (Monthly Critical Gazette, 1st December 1824). Bookseller, orientalist and quondam mayor of Exeter, Upham intended his anonymous tale to introduce readers to the full glories of ancient Egypt - "a series of data, whereby may be formed a knowledge and appreciation of this ancient and illustrious kingdom, resorted to by the wisest and best of the philosophers, the sages, and legislators of Greece, and pronounced by them to be 'the mother of arts, and the fountain of wisdom'". Each volume concludes with copious historical notes. Three volumes. Crown 8vo (187 x 111mm). viii,(342); [ii],(322); [ii],328pp. Bound, without half-titles and a final blank, in an attractive near contemporary half blue-green polished calf, worked in blind on broad bands, ruled and lettered in gilt; red labels; marbled sides; some mild rubbing and a few minor signs of age and use, but a very good, crisp and sound set. Bookplate with the unicorn crest of the Marquesses of Conyngham in each volume and the contemporary ownership inscription of A. Conyngham in vol.i - presumably the diplomat Albert Denison Conyngham (1805-1860), later first Baron Londesborough. Wolff 6925 - not in Sadleir.