En Resa i Finland

Helsinki, Finland: F. Tilgmanns förlag, 1873. Hardcover. Very Good. 100 p., 35 steel-engraved plates; 26 x 33 cm. Red cloth with gilt-tooled cover title; gilt rules on spine. Blind-ruled border on both boards with additional gilt ruled border on the front board. White moire endpapers. Bound without the engraved title page and preliminary pages 1-viii. The author, Zacharias Topelius (1818-1898), through his work as a writer, journalist, and professor of history, played a pivotal role in the creation of the Finnish identity in the 19th century. En Resa i Finland (Travel in Finland) employs illustrations by the most famous Finnish artists of the time. The beautiful steel-engraved plates are based on original paintings by Berndt Lindholm, A. v. Becker, B. Reinhold, Hjalmar Munsterhjelm, Karl Emanuel Jansson, Robert Wilhelm Ekman, J. Knutson, W. Holmberg, Oslar Kleineh, and Albert Edelfelt. Originally issued in parts in 1872 and 1873, this copy was apparently taken to the binder without the title page and 8 preliminary pages. The text is in Swedish. The plates were engraved by A. Weger and are captioned in Finnish, Swedish, and French. This is the first edition, not the modern reprint. In Very Good Condition: corners rubbed; cover slightly soiled; spine faded; corners of a few leaves faintly dampstained, not impacting image or text; light foxing on a few plates; otherwise, clean and bright.