The Runic and Other Monumental Remains of the Isle of Man

London, [Chiswick Press, Printed by C. Whittingham..., Chancery Lane], Bell and Daldy..., no date 1857. FIRST EDITION. 4to, 284 x 218 mms., pp. vii [viii "Tabular View"], 44 [45 - 48 subscribers, including half-title, engraved title-page, 15 full-page engraved plates at end, recent boards, with copy of title-page pasted on front cover, paper label on spine; a very good to fine copy, with the bookplate of the collector of anastatic printings, Edward J. Law on the front paste-down end-paper. The geologist and Church of England clergyman Joseph George Cumming (1812 - 1868) began his studies of the geology and history of the Isle of Man when he became Vice-Principal of King William's College in 1841. He published The Runic and Other Monumental Remains in 1848. The present book seems to be intended as a supplement to that work, as the author implies in his "Prefatory Note": "I think it right to state that the following work is primarily an endeavour to exhibit in its rude character the ornamentation on the Scandinavian Crosses in the Isle of Man. An artist will no doubt find fault with the roughness and want of finish of the illustrations. They have not been got up to please his eye, but I believe the book will be found not any the less to give a corrrect idea of thing as they are, and this is all at which aim in its publication."