British Artists

Privately Printed London, 1829 Brown embossed boards, minor edgewear, professionally restored spine, brown cloth with gilt title, replaced fep, rep. Dated on title page 1829, but 1831 edition with additional plates, 65 total. Some minor foxing or smudges to a few margins. All plates are very good. Shipping and Craft Additional Plates listed on last page. Excellent resource by master of Marine art, Edward Willam Cooke 1811- 1880 Very Rare, OCLC lists 39 copies held worldwide. 4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall. Illus. by Drawn and Etched By E. W. Cooke. 4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall. Inscribed by Author(s). Hardcover. Very Good.

Guildford, England:: Circle Press,, 1979.. First Limited. 40 x 32 Designed and produced by Ronald King with notes & introductory essay 'The Elusive Absolute' by Keith Please. Limited edition of three hundred books with five H.C. copies, forty Artist's Proofs and ten marked Circle Press held for presentation; all the books SIGNED by the artist. Book designed & printed by the artist at Circle Press. Text in 10 pt. Baskerville. The paper is pure rag-made 250 gsm. Velin Cuve Rives Blanc, and the box designed and made at Dorset Bookbinding by Paul Haskell. A beautifully rendered edition of Shakespeare's play with King's own marginal notes and lustrious contemporary illustrations. Cooking the Books: "Antony & Cleopatra is a departure from King's other illustrated classic texts. He himself likens it to a contemporary film script in that it flits from place to place, the scene rapidly changing from Rome to Egypt and back again. Something of this hectic quality… Read More

London: Self-published., 1967. First edition. Folding sheet.. Very Good. Christmas card Drawn by Terry FrostChristmas card. An original artwork, felt tip pen, and leather lace. Inscribed verso a Happy Xmas, Kath + Terry, central vertical fold. Circa 1967/68.Provenance:Purchased at auction. The original recipients were Harry and Mary Judge, Oxford.Harry Judge was headmaster at Banbury School in the 1960s Where Terry sent his children while he was teaching at Reading University.I have to thank Dominic Kemp for the information above. Dominc kemp wrote ‘ Terry Frost Prints. A Catalogue Raisonne’ Which I can highly recommend.Size 80 x 290mm (3 x 11 1/2in)

A delightful Victorian botanical book by an aristocratic amateur artist living in IndiaTinted title page, 12 chromolithographic plates: preface printed in gold with botanical border, and 11 fine botanical plates each with text leaf printed in gold. Very fine botanical plates including group of flowers from Bombay, wild flowers from Mahableshwar, tulip tree, tuberose, Asian bleeding heart, jungle geranium, Bengal rose, crepe myrtle, tamarind, passionflower, lotus and the extinct Magnolia pterocarpa.Emily Eden (1797-1869) was an English aristocrat, writer, novelist and traveler who accompanied her brother George, Lord Auckland, to India from 1836 to 1842 when he was Governor-General. While Emily was sketching flowers, George launched the Afghan Campaign in 1839, "one of the worst disasters in British military history." Emily published books of travel writings Up the Country, 1866 and Letters from India, 1872, novels The Semi-Detached House 1859, and the Semi-Attached Couple 1860.She also privately… Read More

London: William Heinemann. Very Good+ with no dust jacket. c.1916. Limited Signed Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. Tail fore corners bumped, some light rubbing at the hinges, light overall foxing to the free endpapers with a bit on the pastedowns, light dampstain at the tail of the front free endpaper and the next two leaves, a sliver of unobtrusive foxing along the fore edge of numerous pages. Light scuffing to the cloth of the rear cover. The slipcase has light rubbing to all edges, with wear to the head and tail of the leather.; These 13 collected tales represent the traditions of the Allied nations of World War I and, arguably, amount to uplifting, positive propaganda, possibly for the young and most certainly for their parents. English, "Scotch," Welsh, Irish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Russian, Siberian, and Belgian folk tales and "fairy" tales recount the meek besting the mighty and both people and the supernaturals working toward the common good.… Read More

Lovely copy of a very ornamental Georgian gardening book with plates by William Clark.
Complete with 60 finely hand-coloured engravings on steel of popular garden flowers including chrysanthemum, cyclamen, lily, lobelia, delphinium, amaryllis, azalea, wisteria, magnolia, rhododendron, poppy, peony, passionflower, Japanese quince, etc. One double page plate of a huge Chinese Moutan peony.
Drawn and engraved on steel from living specimens by William Clark.
First published in parts, each with four engravings, at 3s 6d each.
"This elegant little work appeared in numbers which commenced in 1825 and ceased in September 1826, when only fifteen had appeared." History of English Gardening, George WIlliam Johnson, 1829.
"We confess we do not perceive the utility of this work as a botanical publication, but we must, nevertheless, do justice to the execution of the plates by Mr. Clark, which are really beautiful specimens of art. Such talents deserve to be better employed than in drawing and engraving subjects… Read More

Very good copy of this classic of 18th century entomology, the first book on British beetles.

Complete with 42 finely hand-coloured copperplates of beetles, arrayed on the pages like specimens in a tray in a cabinet of curiosities.

The plates show some previously unpublished beetle and bug species, many in their tiny original size. The European stag beetle, minotaur, dung beetles, carrion, leaf and weevil beetles, click beetles, tumbling flower beetles, tiger beetles, water beetles, longhorns, carabids, ladybirds, and many others are shown in beautiful colors in 535 intricate illustrations.

The two plain numismatic plates show various gold medallions presented to Martyn from the Pope, Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, King Ferdinand IV of Sicily, Queen Maria Carolina of Naples, etc.

The English Entomologist, exhibiting all the Coleopterous Insects found in England, including upwards of 500 Different Species, arranged and named according to the Linnean System.

With an engraved title page, dedication… Read More

Very good copy of the first edition of Richard Doyle's fantasy masterpiece.

Complete with16 colour woodblock plates printed by Edmund Evans, each with one to four designs, for a total of 36 charming illustrations. Fairies and elves with dragonfly wings flirt and tease, ride snails, fly in the air on butterfly-drawn leaf carriages, sleep under mushrooms, and joust riding on beetles.

"Looking within himself, Doyle found a fantastic but consistently imagined world in which fairies and elves live in the open air among birds, butterflies, snails, and beetles as large as themselves." (Gordon N. Ray, The Illustrator and the Book in England 1790-1914)

Richard "Dickie" Doyle, 1824-1883, was an English artist and illustrator, son of Irish caricaturist John Doyle and uncle of the writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. His began his career at Punch magazine, drawing the cover of the first issue and the masthead. After his success with the Brothers Grimm'sThe Fairy Ring in 1846, Doyle began to specialize in fantasy… Read More

Boston: Houghton Osgood / Houghton, Mifflin, 1879. First edition. Hard cover. 2 volume matching set. Published Boston: Houghton Osgood / Houghton, Mifflin, 1879, 1880. 8vo., lxxxvii+386pp.+43pp. index; lviii+373pp.+43pp. index. Dark maroon cloth with gilt spine titles and cover design, beveled boards with black endpapers, all edges tinted red. Volume one has the 1879 imprint of Houghton Osgood on title page; volume two has 1880 imprint of Houghton, Mifflin. Some wear to the cloth at spine ends, bit or rub to cloth in a few spots, previous owner name on title page of volume one, else a fine, clean, crisp set. . 1st. Hard. Near Fine/No Jacket. 8vo.

Very good copy of a rare privately printed botanical book by a Victorian woman artist
Complete with hand-coloured title and 20 hand-coloured botanical plates, all finely lithographed by Dean and Monday of 40 Threadneedle Street, London.
All plates drawn by talented and mysterious botanical artist E.E. Gleadall.
The flowers include exotic camellias, rhododendron, lady's slipper orchid, passionflower, coral tree, tiger lily, flowering cactus and waterlilies, as well as roses, geraniums, daffodils, pansies and heather.
Miss Eliza Eve Gleadall (1806-1887) was headmistress of the ladies seminary at Heath Old Hall near Wakefield. Here she taught English grammar, French, Italian, music, history, geography, and botanical illustration. She married Benjamin Williamson of Leeds in 1838 and retired from teaching and botanical art to bring up her seven children. Widowed in 1854, she launched another ladies seminary in Harrogate and ran it until her death in 1887. Her only book Beauties of Flora is a guide to… Read More

Illustrative of Granger's Biographical History of England, Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, Burnet's History of his own Time, Pennant's London, etc.
Very good copy of the First Edition complete with all 200 copperplate engravings
An eclectic collection of engraved portraits of "persons celebrated for their diplomatic services, military or naval achievements, literary acquirements, eccentric habits, or some peculiar feature in their lives." Includes many equestrian prints from the Illustrated Clarendon, 12 portraits of King Charles I and II, printers Laurence Koster, William Caxton and John Guttemberg, poets Geoffrey Chaucer and John Milton, Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, assassinated bishop Thomas Becket with a sword in his head, Kings Edward I-VI, several portraits of Queen Elizabeth I, Guy Fawkes and his conspirators, pickpocket Cut-Purse Moll, Kings Henry I-VIII, death of King James I, Mary Queen of Scots, water-spouter Floram Marchand, the great eater Benjamin Marriott, dandy Nym the… Read More

Scarce set of all four volumes of The Class Mammalia, being Volumes 1-4 of the whole series
Complete with all 179 handcoloured and 21 uncoloured engravings of mammals and cetaceans mostly by Charles Hamilton Smith, many sketched from live or preserved specimens in European museums and zoological collections.
Ilustrations include over 20 endangered species including the chinchilla, river otter, Malayan tapir, agile gibbon, chimpanzee, lion-tailed macaque, toque macaque, African wild dog, orangutan, tiger, snow leopard, Tibetan red deer, Chinese pangolin, critically endangered screwhorn antelope, Pygmy three-toed sloth and cotton-top tamarin, and extinct Tasmanian tiger and aurochs, etc.
From the rare English-language edition of Baron Cuvier's seminal Le Regne Animal by Edward Griffith published in 15 volumes
Edward Griffith (1790–1858) was a British naturalist and solicitor. He wrote General and Particular Descriptions of the Vertebrated Animals (1821) and translated Georges Cuvier's Règne Animal… Read More

Complete set of all the 15 ornithology volumes from Sir William Jardine's ambitious Victorian series The Naturalist's Library
With all 478 steel engravings (463 handcoloured plates including title vignettes, one uncoloured title vignette, 14 uncoloured portraits) engraved by Scottish engraver William Lizars after illustrations by famous nonsense-verse poet and caricaturist Edward Lear, Rene-Primavere Lesson's illustrator Jean-Gabriel Pretre, ornithologists William Swainson and Prideaux J. Selby, and Jardine's illustrator James Stewart.
With portraits of several extinct species such as the Norfolk Island pigeon, passenger pigeon, great auk, and the endangered green peafowl, great green macaw, Congo grey parrot, New Zealand kaka, purple-naped lory, Kuhl's lorikeet, western ground parrot, etc.
Includes the very rare supplement to the Hummingbirds, Vol. 3, with 15 plates (1st edition, 1852)
All from the second edition of 1843 with duplicate title pages
Gallinaceous Birds, Sir William Jardine, 32 steel… Read More

Very good complete set of both volumes (all published) of this rare zoological masterpiece
Two volumes (bound in one) of the continuation of the 24-volume Naturalist's Miscellany by George Shaw
With all 120 engraved plates in superb hand-colour
Subjects include the critically endangered American burying beetle or giant carrion beetle, Nicrophorus americanus, and the black abalone, Haliotis cracherodii, as well as many birds, insects, butterflies, marine creatures, crustaceans, shells and a few reptiles and mammals.
Although the publisher is listed as E. Nodder (Elizabeth Nodder, Richard's mother) on the title page of Vol. I, Richard Nodder's name appears on the title page of Vol II and on most of the plates in both volumes as artist, engraver and publisher.
With title page and index pages to both volumes, dedication to Sir Joseph Banks in Vol. 1, 120 hand-coloured engraved plates, and advertisement announcing Volume III to appear 1st January 1817 (never published) at rear.
William Elford Leach… Read More

Very good copy of Sowerby's answer to George Shaw's The Naturalist's Miscellany
Complete with all 76 plates (two folding) finely handcoloured engravings by this prolific artist
Includes "new, rare, or little known animal subjects many not before ascertained to be inhabitants of the British Isles and chiefly in the possession of the author." There are strange parasites that prey on sand bees or sprats, sea urchin, Norway king crab, Sowerby's beaked whale, sea worms and sea fans, a rare narwhal with two tusks, starfish, cuttlefish, beetles, flies, corals and sponges, a water shrew, ducks, brown trout, bee-eaters and grebes.
This is the re-issue from Bernard Quaritch with new title page and corrected and completed index "after the purchase of the [original] stock in May 1875"
New title page, corrected index, original title page, dedication to Francis Lord Seaforth and James Brodie Esq. (who supplied specimens to the author), preface, corrected index (duplicate), 60 handcoloured plates and 1-132 text… Read More