Rural Sports : Volumes I + II

London: Bunny & Gold, 1801. 1st Edition. Full Leather. Very Good. 4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall. Illustrated. Type: Z A lovely two volume set of this work by William Daniel. Bound in contemporary full leather boards with rebacked spines. Gilt embossed lettering to the spines. Marbled end papers. 13 steel engraving illustration plates to volume I and 45 steel engraiving illustration plates to volume II - all as called for. The spines are a slightly lighter brown in colour and have no rubbing or loss. There is rubbing to the board corners with some loss of the overlying leather and some rubbing to the board peripheries. There is a split to the leather on the rear board of Volume I - measuring about 5 cm in length adjacent to the spine - no loss. Volume II also has a short split to the leather of 2.5 cm on the front board - again with no loss, and a small stain mark to the centre of the front board. Previous owners bookplate with the name George arnold Esq and date 1806 to the front paste downs. New end papers. Scattered foxing to the periphery of the illustration pages. pp364 in volume I is more heavily toned than the other pages - most of which show slight normal age toning. There is a stain with tide mark to the upper margin of most of the illustration plates in Volume II from pp 406 onwards - though this only affects the corner of the laste illustration plate in the book. There is also a little creasing to the top corners of about 18 leaves of the textblock in Volume II, suggestive of previous light bumping and a light soil mark to one page corner. The volumes are tightly bound and remain otherwise clean. A very good two volume set.